Chapter Two: Leaving

Me? I'm Carlos, though I ain't Carlos Higuera no more. These days I'm Carlos Rodriguez, and I don't drive a bus no more either.

Sorry, I need to take a short time out here, the dumbass AI is trying to correct my English. Yes, you moron computer, I know "ain't" ain't proper English, but I'm going to say it that way 'cause I want to, OK?

I figured the dumb sat-nav was bad, back when I was driving buses. The AIs here are even dumber. I ignored the sat-nav then and I ignore the AIs now. Worse than my English teachers in high school.

So, back to my story. I guess this is the end of the story, as we're all here on Waller and settled in. Things are good. They ain't perfect, but they ain't bad either. They're sure enough different. Some stuff is better than back on Earth and other stuff isn't (see, you moron computer, I can do it right when I want to). A lot of stuff is just different. It took me a lot of work to get used to things here. I wouldn't have done it without Maria, or Carlita, or Kim, or Lupe. All of them were a big help.

That's the end of my story, so now you don't need to go to the last page to see what happened: "And they all lived happily ever after." Mostly, anyway. This is still real life, not a Disney story.

The beginning? Well...

It was just a short bus trip into California and back to Reno, no overnight in Oregon. We picked everyone up at the high school. Miguel and Pilar looked happy. Dee was sad -- she'd just had to say goodbye to her family. Same for Kim, she didn't look happy either but tried to hide it. She sat next to Dee so they could comfort each other.

Mike was my relief that day, so he was driving when we crossed the state line back into Nevada. Leona did her usual thing getting the passengers through the transporter. She took our two groups last. First Miguel, with Pilar and Dee as concubines and Tomas as his dependent. Then Carlita, with me, Maria, Lupe and Kim as concubines and with Rosamaria and Alvaro as dependents.

Like always, Leona got our consents before she let us through the transporter. "Do you, Carlos Higuera, agree to become the concubine of Carlita Rodriguez?"

I was the last one she asked and I was dreading the question. Up to then I was my own man. OK, I was married to Maria, but that was different. I was selling myself into slavery to save my children. Worth the price? Hell, yes. Was Carlita a good sponsor? Yes. Was I terrified? Sure I was. Who wouldn't be? Everything was gonna be different on the other side of that transporter. I swallowed, took a deep breath and said, "Yes." I was a slave.

Leona smiled and told me, "You'll be fine, Carlos. Just follow orders. I know you can do that."

Easy for her to say, she wasn't a concubine. I stepped forward onto the transporter after the others.

We arrived in a white corridor; very clean, very clinical, with doors down the right hand side. There was an Asian woman in a blue uniform talking to Carlita. I could see Miguel and his family further down the corridor, turning into one of the doors. Carlita led us off, "We're in room nine," she told us. The woman in blue turned back towards the transporter disc, waiting for the next group to arrive from wherever.

Room nine was small with no chairs, so we all had to stand. There was a little slot by a small replicator on the right hand wall and a second door in the far wall. It was all white except for the light gray slot and replicator. Clean and clinical again.

A voice came from somewhere, "You are Sponsor Carlita Rodriguez?"

"Yes, I am," Carlita replied.

"Please insert your CAP card and the CAP cards of your concubines into the slot to your right."

Carlita already had all our cards, Leona had made sure of that on the bus. She fed them into the slot.

"Sponsor Carlita Rodriguez confirmed," the voice said. "Four concubines confirmed. Concubine Carlos Rodriguez, formerly Higuera..."

Shocked, I turned towards Maria. She looked just as bad as I felt.

The unemotional voice carried on, "Concubine Maria Rodriguez, formerly Higuera. Concubine Guadalupe Rodriguez, formerly Higuera. Concubine Kim Rodriguez, formerly Valdez."

Kim took it the worst. Being with Dee had helped her during the bus ride, but Dee wasn't here now. Kim burst into tears and cried on Lupe's shoulder. Lupe's a good girl and she hugged Kim to try to calm her down. I think it helped Lupe get over her shock as well. I held Maria's hand. We weren't married any more, we weren't free any more and we didn't even have our own names any more. Could things get any worse?

The voice ignored our reactions and continued as if nothing had happened, "I detect two dependents present. Please confirm their identities, Sponsor Carlita Rodriguez."

"They are Rosamaria Higuera and Alvaro Higuera," Carlita told the voice. It was a small comfort that she was allowing our kids to keep their own names. I was standing behind Carlita, so I couldn't see her face, but I think she was as shocked as we were.

"Two dependents confirmed. Dependent Rosamaria Higuera, age twelve, assigned to Sponsor Carlita Rodriguez. Dependent Alvaro Higuera, age eleven, assigned to Sponsor Carlita Rodriguez."

I could see that Maria was close to tears. Hearing 'assigned to Sponsor Carlita Rodriguez' had really got to her. She'd lost her freedom, she'd lost her husband, she'd lost her name and now she was losing her children. I copied Lupe and held my wife -- no, my ex-wife -- in my arms. We both needed someone to hold onto.

The voice was talking again, but it was something for Carlita so I didn't bother listening. Right then Maria was far more important. The replicator pinged and Carlita took a couple of things out of it, a new CAP card and a smartphone. Only one CAP card, for her. Us concubines didn't even rate a CAP card any more.

The second door opened and we followed Carlita out. What a pesadilla that was, a real nightmare. I never wanted to see room nine ever again.

Carlita looked at her phone and led us off to the left along a second corridor. Lupe still had her arm around Kim's shoulder while I held Maria's hand. We arrived in another white room, this one with a lot of metal pods down both sides. It looked like something out of a science-fiction movie, which was about right. At least there was a real person here and not that damned voice. He was in white with that snake-around-a-stick logo on his tunic, so he looked like some sort of nurse.

"Welcome to medical," he greeted Carlita. "You are Carlita Rodriguez and family?"

"Yes, that's us."

"The AI reports no special medical conditions."

"Right," she confirmed, "nothing important."

"Good. You'll all get the basic stuff for sponsor, concubine or dependent," he explained. "Enhancements will come later. This is just to make sure nobody drops dead from a heart attack or whatever. Stupid to lose you just after we get you here." He noticed the bags we were carrying. "You all got stuff you want to keep?"

"Yes," Carlita told him.

"OK, put the bags under your tube, but don't put anything you want to keep in the red bins. Clothes go in those and your concubines won't get them back."

I knew we'd lose our clothes soon after we arrived. This was obviously where it happened.

He started with the kids. They stripped and got into their tubes. I saw that Rosamaria was getting embarrassed, so I turned my back until she was in her tube. The kids had green bins, not red ones, under their tubes. My tube had a red bin of course. I wanted to keep my wristwatch because it was a present from Rosamaria for my last birthday. For the rest, I was wearing my driver's uniform so it went into the red bin. I probably wasn't gonna to need it any more, and if I did the Confederacy could easily make me a new one. I was out like a light before the top finished closing.

When I woke up the lid was opening. Everyone except Carlita was already finished.

"You had some slightly clogged arteries, which we're clearing, and mild hypertension," the nurse told me. "Apart from that you're in pretty good shape for your age." He handed me a pair of flip-flops together with a gray shift to put on; not much of a replacement for my old clothes. It was very short. I was gonna have to be careful not to show more than I wanted to show. "You have to wear the shift whenever you're outside your apartment," he told me.

The kids were back in their clothes. Maria was in a shift like mine, barely long enough to keep her covered. It looked as bad as the rumors back on Earth had said it would be. Even I could tell it was a fashion disaster, and I ain't no judge of fashion. She was showing a lot more leg than she usually did. Kim and Lupe were in shifts too, but I was used to seeing Lupe's legs. Some of the shorts she wore to school....

The nurse took me over to a replicator in the wall where he fitted me with a collar. "This lets you talk to the AI, and it to you," he told me. "It will guide you around the place and open doors for you. It will also keep you out of areas you shouldn't go. Take it off for washing or when you're in bed. Otherwise don't remove it without permission, nasty things will happen."

"How nasty?" I asked.

"They range from very painful to terminal. Don't even try."

OK, I got the message: the collar stayed on. I could see that he had a collar as well, so he was a fellow concubine. That meant there were some jobs for us to do outside our families. I wondered if they'd need bus drivers where we were going?

As I walked back to join the others, I paused to pick up my bag and Rosamaria's watch from under the tube.

Alvaro came over to me, "Look Papa, I've got this new cell. I can talk to it."

He held out his wrist with a band on it, very like my new collar.

"That's very nice, Alvaro," I told him. "It looks like my collar."

"Yes, Papa. Mama, Lupe and Kim have collars as well. Rosamaria has another wrist cell like me. I don't like your new clothes. I think your old ones were better."

Thanks for telling me that, Alvaro. It's not like I hadn't noticed. "This is all I have now, so I can't wear anything else," I told him.

He just nodded, "Oh, OK."

Just then Carlita's tube opened and saved me from more of Alvaro's comments. She got a proper uniform, green since she'd volunteered as a Marine. No collar for her of course. Something I couldn't see startled her and she started talking to herself. I didn't understand what was happening, so I waited with the others. I'd moved to the back of our group so none of them were looking at me. I still wasn't comfortable in my new shift. The women seemed to take it better, they were more used to wearing skirts or dresses.

Carlita led us off to our next destination. She didn't have the smartphone with her any more, but she seemed to know the way. We arrived in a theater, though the film hadn't started. No ads, no popcorn and no trailers either. We all sat down in a row with me at one end, next to Alvaro.

"What is this place, Papa?" he asked me.

I didn't get the chance to answer; the thing on his wrist beeped and he held it near his ear. I could just about hear it, "This is Lecture Theater Three. Please sit quietly until the presentation starts, Dependent Alvaro Higuera."

"Sounds like we wait, Alvaro," I told him. He nodded and looked around. I could see Carlita waving to someone sitting nearer the front; it was Miguel. He turned around and waved back to her. He spoke to Pilar, Dee and Tomas and they turned and waved as well. I could see a few other faces that seemed familiar from the bus. There were others who hadn't been on it, not on my bus anyway. This audience was obviously a mix of people from different places. Probably all new arrivals, like us and Miguel.

The lights dimmed and the big screen showed a man in a blue uniform sitting behind a desk. "Hello and welcome all of you to Tycho Base on the moon. We have up to half-a-million people here in Tycho Base, so we need to tell you the rules you must follow. What I have to say will seem blunt and rude, but believe me it is necessary. We must make things very clear to you because we treat disobedience very seriously."

"First, orders. Those of you who are sponsors are now under military discipline and must obey orders. If you are a trainee private, then anybody in a uniform outranks you. If you are a trainee officer, then any other officer outranks you, and we strongly recommend that you follow advice from any experienced enlisted man."

"Concubines, you must do whatever your sponsor says. You should usually do what other sponsors say as well, with very few exceptions. For most purposes you do what any sponsor tells you."

"Second, dress code. This applies to everybody when you are outside your quarters. Sponsors will wear their uniform: green for Marines, black for Navy, blue for Fleet Auxiliary and gray for Civil Service."

"Most of you listening to me now are in pre-packs, so the concubines here are already attached to a sponsor. Attached concubines, of both sexes, will wear the regulation gray shift while in public...."

There was a sound of rustling as people got the message. Some of them had taken off their shifts and were quickly putting them back on. Stupid. They'd warned everybody that us concubines had to do what we were told. If they couldn't even do that then why the hell had they agreed to be concubines?

The talking head on the screen froze; someone had stopped the playback during the distraction. They must have had a lot of canned talks ready to show if there were half-a-million evacuees here. That's a lot of people to talk to.

Once everyone got settled again, the recording continued. "Unattached concubines, of both sexes, must remain naked while in the public areas of the base. This allows sponsors to tell at a glance which concubines are available for selection and which are not. All concubines must wear their collars all the time. Your collar is coded to you personally, so do not try to exchange collars with another concubine. We will punish both of you if you try it."

"Dependents wear their own clothes. Rarely, you may see an adult in civilian clothes with a red armband. That person is neither a sponsor nor a concubine, but will shortly be returned to Earth. They do not have sponsor rights, nor should they be treated as concubines."

"What you wear in your apartments is up to your sponsors, but in public everyone has to conform to the Base dress code."

"Third, selecting concubines. Sponsors of incomplete pre-packs can select from the unattached concubine pool here in the Base. Unattached concubines are kept naked, so you can tell who they are. You can ask the AI for suggestions for a good match. The AI has a lot of data on which combinations would work for you and which wouldn't. Think of it as a very sophisticated computer dating service. We strongly recommend that you make use of it. Facilities for interviews and test drives are available, just ask the AI. Do not take too long to fill your allocation. If you are too slow, then we may assign someone to you. Our choice, not yours."

"Once you have your full complement of concubines, we will give you a little time here for the new people to integrate into your family. Pre-packs that arrived complete will not get the extra time, because you already know one another from Earth. Once integrated, families will ship out to their assigned colonies."

I could see that meant Carlita and the rest of us wouldn't be here on the moon for long. No point in us getting too well settled in.

The talking head was still talking, "Fourth, training. All of you need training. Sponsors need to learn their new role in their chosen service. Concubines need to learn their new duties. Dependents need to continue their schooling. There are sleep-trainers in your apartments as well as lectures and other educational activities. The AIs will assign each of you your personal training schedules. Follow them."

"Fifth, sex. Sponsors can have sex with their own concubines how they want, when they want and in whatever combination they want. Concubines have sex with any adult their sponsor tells them to, or allows them to. Sponsors cannot demand sex from concubines they don't own. If she belongs to someone else, then you must get her sponsor's permission first. If she's unattached, that is she's naked in public, then you can ask her for a test drive. She can say no, and you have to accept what she says. You won't pick her for your harem, but you don't own her so you can't force her into a test drive. Just like in a normal extraction down on Earth, she can refuse."

"Dependents under thirteen don't have sex. At all. Ever. We'll execute you if you do, regardless of whether you're a sponsor or a concubine. Do that and you're dead. Parenting is OK of course, so you can wash the young ones in the bath, but you only get to do what a parent should do. Thirteen-year-olds can do more. Only with their consent and limited to kissing, blow-jobs..."

Alvaro interrupted me, "What's a blow-job, Papa?"

"Later, Alvaro. Listen to the man." I managed to dodge that one this time. Knowing the way the Confederacy treated sex, he'd soon be learning what a blow-job was in sex-ed classes at his new school.

We turned back to the screen, where the video was still running, "Finally, questions. This is a recording, so you will have to direct any questions you have to the AI through your internal link or your collar. Almost every question you can think of has already been asked, so the AI has the answer. Thank you for listening and remember to do what you're told. Good luck all of you in your new lives."

The talking head had warned us that he'd be blunt and he had been. Lots of rules to follow and threats of punishment to back them up. It was what we'd been told to expect back on Earth, but it was still a shock. They were throwing a lot of new stuff at us very quickly and it was a rush to get hold of it all.

The screen went blank and one of those disembodied voices came, "You will all remain seated until told to move." Those voices had to be AIs; somehow they just didn't sound right for a person. I could see the people at the front beginning to file out, so we wouldn't be waiting for long.

I bent down to pick up my bag and noticed my watch. Was I allowed to wear it? Remembering that the AI had answered Alvaro's question about this theater, I asked my collar, "AI, am I allowed to wear my watch?"

"You may wear small personal items, with your sponsor's permission," it replied.

I decided to ask Carlita the first chance I got, then my collar spoke again, "Concubine Carlos Rodriguez, your sponsor has given permission. You may wear your wristwatch."

Startled, I looked towards the other end of our group, where Carlita was sitting. She was looking at me, and smiled. Obviously the AI had talked to her somehow. I smiled back, waved my thanks, put my watch on and sat back until they told us to move.

The row in front of us had cleared, so I was expecting it when my collar said, "Concubine Carlos Rodriguez, stand up and move to the left hand end of the row."

When I got there it spoke again, "Turn left, up towards the door you entered through."

What the fuck! My collar was another stupid sat-nav, like on the bus! Was I never gonna get away from those damned things? I almost laughed. It was too dumb for words, being stuck with a moron sat-nav permanently around my neck.

Once we were out of the theater, Carlita took the lead. We soon arrived at another transporter and waited in line while other groups went through in front of us. I wondered where this one would take us, so I asked my collar again. Turned out this was an internal transporter, taking us from the reception area where we'd arrived, to the residential area where we'd be staying. That figured. The talking head said there were half-a-million people here, so the place had to be huge. Coulda been a long walk.

We walked through the transporter and down another corridor to our apartment. These corridors all looked the same, so perhaps I would need the sat-nav sometimes. It wasn't bugging me any, it was probably bugging Carlita instead since she was leading. I was fine with that. The collar could be useful, but I wanted to be able to turn off the stupid sat-nav when I didn't need it.

The apartment was big, much bigger than our old place in Reno. Alvaro and Rosamaria each had their own room here, which got them smiling. They'd had to share before as we couldn't afford a larger place. We'd been trying to negotiate with the landlord but hadn't managed to agree on anything. With people being extracted there was a lot of empty places around, so rents were falling. We were trying to get a bigger place for the same rent, while the landlord wanted to jack up the rent some for the extra space.

All four of us concubines had our own separate bedrooms, even me and Maria. The rooms were big, so the beds could hold two. At least we could sleep together some of the time. Carlita's bedroom was huge, with an enormous bed. All five of us could have fitted on it with room to spare. She had her own bathroom while the rest of us had to share, two to a bathroom. We picked the obvious arrangement so I was sharing with Maria, Lupe and Kim were together and the two kids had the last one. Family room, kitchen, a room with two things like medical tubes in it, which my collar said were the sleep-trainers. Carlita had her office off the main room as well. The apartment was clean and clinical, like the rest of this place. I could see Maria was itching to redecorate, but that was up to Carlita now, not her. From what the talking head had said, we weren't gonna be here for long anyway, so it probably wouldn't be worth the bother. I could live with plain cream walls for a few days. The place looked like those boring motel rooms I'd stayed in overnight when I was driving buses. A lot bigger though.

Maria sent the kids to their rooms, warning them not to unpack too much of their stuff as we wouldn't be here long. There wasn't anything I needed to unpack, so I didn't. All I'd brought were things I wouldn't be able to get from a replicator: my papa's medals, photos of me as a child and other bits like that.

Kim did need to unpack some of her stuff. She'd brought Vietnamese ingredients for her cooking. She didn't trust what the replicators already had, so she'd splurged on some really good quality Fish Sauce and the like. She'd got her mama to prepare some things for her as well. She made sure the replicator at our destination would get copies and scanned them in. The AI said that they would travel out with us on the same ship, so she could get them on the journey as well.

That was a question I hadn't expected; where we were going. Carlita gathered us all together, and told us, "The AI has given me a choice. We can go to a Spanish-speaking colony or an English-speaking colony. I need to talk to Miguel before I decide, but I want your opinions."

All of us could speak both, some better than others. Kim's Spanish was weakest and Maria's English wasn't so good.

"Spanish," Alvaro said, almost immediately.

"English," Rosamaria followed just behind. Probably she just went for the one Alvaro didn't. They were in one of their days of not agreeing with each other about anything.

Carlita smiled at their antics and looked at Kim.

"English. My Spanish isn't that good," she said.

Lupe went for English as well, while Maria picked Spanish.

I'd been thinking while Carlita was asking the others. I could speak both, so the language didn't matter to me. I'd been to Mexico a few times and I liked it, but Mexico is sloppy. I didn't think that the Confederacy would like sloppy. I'm not saying there ain't any sloppy in America, there is, but not as much as in Mexico. I could imagine Leona's horrified reaction to sloppy, and Leona seemed to fit what the Confederacy was about. "English," I said finally.

"Thanks," Carlita said. "I'll talk to Miguel and let you all know. Obviously I'll want to pick the same colony as my father."

"How long will we be here, Carlita?" Lupe asked.

Carlita paused with a distant look in her eyes. Then we heard one of those AI voices, "The next ship to the Wallerat system will depart in three days. The next ship to the Nuevo Bolivarat system will depart in five days."

"Wallerat is an English-speaking colony?" Kim asked.

"Correct, Concubine Kim Rodriguez."

The AI's habit of using our full names and titles obviously irritated Carlita, like it did me. "AI, please use only our first names when there is no chance of confusion."

"Yes, Carlita."

That was good. The way the AI talked was damned irritating and it might help some by not constantly reminding me that I'd lost my name, along with everything else. Plain 'Carlos' was a helluva lot better than 'Concubine Carlos Rodriguez'.

Carlita stood up, "I'm going into my office to talk to Miguel. Once we've discussed it I'll let you know where we're going."

As she began to move, Lupe quickly asked, "Can we get rid..." as she fingered the neckline of her shift.

Carlita glanced at the kids, "Not while..."

Lupe nodded. "What about the evenings?"

"You can ditch them then if you want to, while you're in the apartment."

Alvaro was about to head off to his room, when Maria asked him to sit down, "I want to talk to you all," she said, seriously. She looked around at each of us, to make sure she had our attention. "Things will be a lot different from now on, but we are still a family. We now have Carlita and Kim in our family as well," she paused to smile at Kim. "Carlita is in charge." She focused on the two children. "That means I want you two to call her, 'Mama Carlita' because she's in charge. You have three other mothers as well now. I'm 'Mama Maria' and you have 'Mama Kim' and 'Mama Lupe' as well." Kim was smiling at being included. Lupe didn't look so happy, she was suddenly being moved from big sister to mama.

Maria noticed Lupe's expression. "You'll be a real mother soon, Lupe, so you'd better start getting used to it now." That was something I didn't really want reminding of. Carlita had said it would be Miguel fathering Lupe's first child, which was better than some stranger doing it, but it was still not easy for a father to think about.

Maria picked up a book, a Bible her mother had given her as a wedding present, and read, "Esclavos, obedezcan a sus patrones con temor y respeto, sin ninguna clase de doblez, como si sirvieran a Cristo."

I recognized the text, something from Ephesians: "Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ." She'd picked a good verse for our situation.

Maria closed her Bible, "We all have to do what we're told. You children have to do what your Mamas and Papa tell you. Us four concubines have to do what Carlita tells us and Carlita has to follow orders too, now that she's a soldier."

"Some of the things we have to do will be difficult. No matter how difficult they are, we have to do our best to do them. We owe it to Carlita. She took us all safely away from the Swarm and we have to thank her by doing what she says."

I reached out to take Maria's hand and we smiled at each other. Sometimes my wife... my ex-wife, amazed me. She'd said that just right; I felt so proud of her. We did have a lot to thank Carlita for and it was good of Maria to remind us of it.

Carlita herself emerged just then. "English," she said. Rosamaria cheered and stuck her tongue out at Alvaro. She got a glare from me and a frown from Maria for her trouble. Even Kim got in on the act and shook her head at the twelve-year-old. I didn't know Kim's CAP scores, but I trusted Carlita to have picked a good mother.

"And now I think we should eat," Carlita continued. Alvaro jumped up, cheered and led the rush to the kitchen with Rosamaria close behind him.

After our meal, we all relaxed in the main room. I was having to learn to keep my legs together, something the women did automatically. My gray shift was very short and if I wasn't careful, Rosamaria and Lupe would see a lot more than I really wanted to show them.

The AI could show a lot of TV channels, more than we ever had in Reno. It was more like European TV than US TV as well. Carlita said that she'd told the AI to allow the sex-ed channels, but to block the porno stuff when the kids were watching. Education, she said. I wished I'd had education like that back when I was in school, I'd have paid a lot more attention in class for sure.

We were all getting tired after our day of changes, so Carlita sent the kids off to bed. Lupe and Kim immediately ditched their shifts, so I had a tent problem in mine. Four very nice teen tetas to admire, and two of them belonging to my daughter. I pretended to ignore my tent; hopefully it would go down once I got used to the sights.

Carlita gathered us four concubines for a talk. "I'm in charge," she said. "None of us have a choice about that, but I won't always be here. I'll have training and then be on deployment for months at a time. While I'm away, I want Maria and Carlos to take charge in the family. Even when I'm here, you two, Kim and Lupe, can talk to either of them before you come to me about something. They know a lot more about running a family than I do." She turned to us, "I picked you because you're both really good parents and I want you to keep doing that."

Yeah. That made a lot of sense. She'd picked us for being parents and now she'd put us in charge of it. "That's fine, Carlita," I said, "but what if Maria and me don't agree on something?"

"How did you work it out before?" she asked.

"We always agreed in the end."

"Fine, then it won't be a problem in future, will it?"

Good point. Usually it was Maria who decided, but sometimes me. It depended on who felt the strongest about whatever it was.

"Next, sex," she went on. "I don't want any of you four having sex with anyone outside this family, unless I say so. If another sponsor asks, apologize and tell him or her I said no."

We all nodded. I'd been expecting that and I think the others had as well. We had enough to deal with among ourselves without bringing in outsiders.

"Among ourselves, I get what I want," she grinned. "You four can ask each other but the one you ask can always say no."

Again, that was what I'd expected. I was still worried about Lupe asking me, despite her sexy tetas that were playing peek-a-boo with her long hair. Carlita had promised not to make me, so I could always say no if Lupe asked.

Carlita carried on, "No need for any of you to worry about contraception for the moment, they fixed that temporarily while you were in the med-tubes earlier. I'll turn things back on when we need to start making babies. And lastly, tonight I want Lupe and Kim. Maria and Carlos, you can make your own arrangements."

Talk about giving us a big hint! As we walked, hand-in-hand, towards our rooms, I asked Maria, "My place or yours?"

"Mine," she said. "I can't visit with a man I'm not married to. We don't have a chaperone and people might talk." She even managed to keep a straight face.

I laughed and led us into her room. The laughter helped, though she'd made a serious point with her joke. We weren't married, true, but we were still Carlos and Maria and we did have our relationship, our memories and our children. Our relationship was different now, but we still had something from the past and we would still have something in the future.

After we'd made love, Maria shocked me once more.

"You'll have to do that again," she told me.

"Hey, I'm not a teenager no more, you need to give me time to recover," I said, completely missing her point. She had to explain it to me in short words so I could follow.

"That wasn't what I meant, mi amor, though that would be nice as well. What I mean is that you just made love to a woman who isn't your wife. You're going to have to do that again. With Carlita, with Kim, and with anyone else Carlita tells you to."

That hit me right between the eyes. Maria wasn't my wife and we'd just made love. I'd never been unfaithful to her in all our married life. Now we weren't married any more, though we were still together, and I was going to go with other women. OK, Carlita and Kim were family, so I wasn't going outside, but even though they were family, they weren't Maria. Another one of those things I'd heard about before I left Earth, but hadn't really thought about seriously. Now here it was creeping up on me. I wouldn't be able to avoid it either. No way Carlita was going to let me stay faithful to Maria. Part of my new job was getting the family's women pregnant, not just Maria. Maria hugged me while I thought about it.

She spoke softly, "That was the first time I've ever done that with anyone who wasn't my husband."

¡Mierda! I was thinking so much about myself and my problems, that I hadn't thought about Maria. She was in the same position; worse really as she was a virgin on our wedding night. Could she have sex with another man? How would she react? And she might have to go with Carlita as well. Could she do that? I know there's a lot of lesbian fantasy porn out there, but that ain't real. For Maria it might turn out all too real.

I just about managed to avoid crying and held her for a while. If I'd tried to talk I'd have cried, so I stayed quiet. Maria seemed to understand that. I was so lucky to have her. She made sure I saw all the things that I needed to see, but was too dumb to work out for myself.

"We're sticky," she told me after a time. "We need showers."

We were about to get in when my collar spoke. "Remove your collar, Carlos, before entering the shower. Replace it before exiting the bathroom." There was a slight click and it felt looser on my neck. Maria was reaching for hers, so she'd gotten the same message. We put our collars on a shelf and stepped in.

The shower was wonderful, plenty big enough for two and lots of instant hot water. We hadn't often showered together before, our shower in Reno was too small; nowhere near as big as this one. Washing Maria, and being washed by her in turn, helped me to relax some. There were things coming that I knew I wasn't gonna like. I'd do them because I'd have to, but that didn't mean I'd like doing them. Having Maria around with me in the shower, and other places, would help me a lot.

I've always taken longer to get to sleep than Maria. That's OK, she usually got up before me in the mornings. As I lay awake, thinking back over the day, I remembered my papa. He'd been in the Army and what they'd been doing to us here seemed like his stories of Army basic training. They'd thrown a lot of new things at us to keep us off-balance and confused. We'd got some simple rules and they made sure that we'd follow any orders they gave us. Yeah, it sounded a lot like basic training. More sex than in basic training though.

The AI woke us for breakfast in the morning. I looked at my watch and it wasn't showing the time the AI said. When I asked, it told me that my watch was still on Pacific Standard Time from Reno and we were slowly moving to Earthat Universal Time, that's GMT in English. We'd be on short days until we got caught up. Our colony ship would be on EUT as well, so they wanted to get us used to it before we boarded. That explained why we'd been wakened. Usually Maria had her built-in alarm clock and woke up at the right time anyway.

Everyone was quiet at breakfast, probably the time shift. Kim and Lupe were both wearing a dark skirt and white blouse, much nicer than those gray things. Carlita said that in the apartment she'd allow us to wear a skirt, or shorts for me, with a top. Maria immediately rushed back to her room to get something to change into from the replicator. I didn't bother as I'd have to get back into my shift anyway for the morning's lectures. We were sitting at the kitchen table, so everything was hidden under the table for the moment. Fashion was much more important for the women; they certainly spent enough time on it.

After eating, the kids went off to their new school, Carlita went off for some sponsor instruction and we had concubine training. I saw some naked people in the audience, so we obviously had unattached concubines mixed in with us. A lot of the training was a repeat of what the talking head had told us yesterday –- longer and in more detail, with pictures. At least they waited until after our breakfast had settled down before they got to showing us the executions. With half-a-million of us here they weren't short of examples -- the one they showed was from two days ago. These Confederacy people didn't mess around. They killed you, they filmed it and they made sure that everybody got the message. I got it. Just like Leona did on the bus, they made sure people got it loud and clear.

The kids and Carlita met up with us for lunch and we all ate together in a big canteen near our apartment. You could tell this was a twenty-four-hour operation as some people were obviously eating their breakfasts while we were on lunch. There weren't any naked concubines here. According to my collar, our area was for completed families, ready to ship out, so all the concubines were already hooked up. What a shame. I wouldn't have minded watching a few test drives over my roll and soup. Not that the food was bad, I would just have liked a little entertainment to go with it.

Carlita sent Maria and the kids back to the apartment after lunch. The kids had to do some sleep-training to help with their school work. Kim, Lupe and me had more lectures and films. That's something they don't tell you back on Earth, how much time you spend looking at boring movies. Down there you get lots of exciting stuff about sex, space wars and Swarmtroopers, but nothing about having to watch dull videos on how to recognize Confederacy rank badges.