Open for Business

Waking up the next day, Mark went downstairs and got himself a cup of black coffee and joined Edward and Jonah, who were sitting at one table just like they had been every day since they built the outreach hub.

Much of the community was already up and around by the time Mark got out of bed. It just made him feel like he was being lazy and sleeping in. It wouldn’t take long once the citizens had comfortable houses and beds until the population transformed to the more laid back ways of Federation life and not waking up with the sun.

As the three most powerful leaders on Colonia sat and talked, the morning topic was how to go about upgrading everyone’s houses to the new basic residences that the people of Hope got.

Mark was glad to inform them of what he had found out last night after he and Cricket discussed how best to go about doing this. Fortunately, only Langdon, Federation City, and Hubbard were the only sizeable communities, and they had few multi-family buildings; those people would get new free-standing houses, but every building was free standing with space around it. All the buildings now had new Federation paths going right up to their front doors and any area that wasn’t paths now had green grass.

Cricket had come up with a faster way to convert existing structures with minimal personnel. She was going to use the drones as housing agents. The residents would have to remove anything they wanted to keep from the building. Once completed, they had to stand out front with their belongings as a family so the drone could see the family units (double checking against the identity system) and then it would begin transforming the existing building into the basic Federation residence. The basic residences all had the same building footprint, and all had a flat roof for transit, a small porch at the front entrance, and a small deck on the back. Inside was a common room with a computer and desk, a master bedroom for the parents, and one bedroom for each child.

1 to 3 bedroom homes were a bungalow style with a single bathroom and 4 to 6 bedroom homes were two-storey buildings with a washroom downstairs and bathroom upstairs. Once the houses were made with the default floor plans, they could make slight changes, but they had to be done through the municipal planning system and they couldn’t change the footprint. It wasn’t an issue on this planet, but planets with existing utilities had to be safely terminated away from the house.

Once the lights came on, they could start moving into their new home.

Mark outlined the process to Edward and Jonah and Cricket put the residence upgrade instructions as the front page news articles on the library kiosks.

Edward suggested he was also going to get the town crier to announce it to the public, but mere seconds after Cricket had put the information on the kiosks, a woman ran by them screaming, ‘We get new houses!’, which then caused a mad rush to the kiosks followed by people then rushing back home.

Mark suggested, “Maybe hold off on the town crier. Something tells me this is happening right now in every community ... except Hope!”

Jonah then started laughing and when Edward inquired what was so funny, Jonah said, “Jon, the town crier, just ran by. I don’t think he’s available to announce anything right now.” They all laughed as they refilled their cups and went for a walk.

Walking up the main East-West path that ran along the shore of the Great Lake, they could see people tossing stuff out the doors and onto the front lawns.

Mark stopped and asked a couple, “Why are you throwing clothes, blankets and pillows out onto the grass? Do they hold sentimental value?”

The husband stopped and answered, “No, but we need clothing to wear and bedding for sleeping.”

Mark chuckled, “No, you don’t. The beds have a reset button that automatically gives you clean pillows, sheets and blankets, plus all residences have a clothing synth that will automatically create clothes that fit your body perfectly each day. You only need to keep tools and irreplaceable or sentimental items.”

The man then yelled at his wife, “Quit throwing clothes out!”

She stopped and poked her head out the door. “Why?”

Then, after hearing the explanation, she simply rolled up a few items in a blanket and brought them outside, and then they started tossing clothing and bedding back into the house. When just the blanket she had laid aside remained, they called for their children. Less than a minute later, two kids emerged from the house carrying a couple of toys, which they placed on the grass beside the blanket and the mother confirmed that was all of their toys.

The husband then put up his hand and shouted, “Residence upgrade.”

A drone appeared in front of them and confirmed their identities, then did a quick scan of the structure and disappeared as the building began transforming into a basic 3 bedroom bungalow. The basic residences took less than 15 minutes to construct.

The same scene was unfolding every few minutes along the pathway.

Jonah went to excuse himself to go get his own residence upgraded and Edward agreed he should do the same, but Edward added, “Can we get together later?”

Mark suggested, “Tell you what! Go get your houses rebuilt, then let’s meet for lunch at the outreach centre and maybe we can go play a full round of golf this afternoon?”

The three men immediately looked around the edge of the shoreline to the location they had decided for the golf course. They laughed as they watched the trees moving around the future course.

The men all nodded in agreement and went their separate ways.

Mark returned to the outreach centre and joined the rest of the gang as they were eating breakfast and just watching the people all running about. Joseph was simply floating in his saucer near Annabelle, content to watch his mommy and all the people rushing about.

The rest of the morning was quite hectic and over half of the community residences had been upgraded before lunch. The gang had discussed the plans for the day. Mark had mentioned possibly playing a full round of gold with Edward and Jonah, but after that and with the Space Station staffed, they weren’t sure how much more they could really do. They kind of wanted to return to Earth for a few days before leaving for Norn space.

Just before lunch, Cricket notified Mark that he needed to take a call with a politician on Earth. Mark excused himself and went into one office in the outreach centre.

Sitting down at the desk, Mark checked his messages and saw one of the political liaisons in Atlantis had a question regarding natural resources, with a message to call a name Mark recognized when the Pro-Federation Party of Canada had met with them in Atlantis.

He instructed Cricket to connect the call and a minute later, the political liaison in Atlantis, the party representative in Alberta, and the federal party representative were all connected to the conference call.

The liaison introduced everybody and then announced that the Alberta representative was the lead on the call, and that she was just there as an observer.

“Thank you for calling us, my King. There is a major debate being broadcast tonight and one of the primary focuses will be about Alberta’s natural resources. I know we discussed it when we met with you in Atlantis, but I’m wanting to hear it from you again and, if I may, record your response for the record.”

Mark shrugged his shoulders and said, “Go right ahead.”

“My King, as you well know, Alberta has lots of natural resources, primarily those used in the energy sector such as oil, gas and electricity production. We know the Atlantean Federation is a clean, non-polluting society, but we need to know your stand on the production of Alberta’s natural resources.”

“We don’t like pollution in the Federation, and much of Earth wants to transition to renewable energy, and we’re trying to help with that process, because they’re living in a dream world if they think wind, solar and lithium batteries are the answer.

So, for natural resources and finances—the province and the country are in serious debt! If you have a valuable product that can be extracted and refined better and cleaner than competitors in other parts of the world AND allow you to make profit and reduce debt, then make hay while the sun shines, as the old saying goes.”

“Alberta is a landlocked province and even our own federal government is hindering the ability to even get our product to refineries.”

“Then let’s create lots of jobs and build our own refineries, so we can do everything locally.”

“What good is that, when we’re still landlocked and can’t get product exported?”

Mark smiled and did his best Doc Brown impression from Back to the Future, “Marty, where we’re going, we don’t need pipelines!

Seriously, landlocked means nothing to the Federation; we can transport anything, safer, faster, more efficiently and more environmentally friendly than anyone else in the world, which would probably help you make your product even more attractive and profitable as your worldwide customers won’t have to wait weeks to receive your product. Plus, it would put the pressure on the less ethical, dirty producers of the same product. The Federation has access to some pretty top notch technology, y’know!”

“But what about the destruction of the natural landscape?”

“I wouldn’t go opening up any new strip mining operations or any new business that’s going to create new destruction of the land, but as we have proven many times already, the Federation has the technology to clean up soil and rebuild environments.”

“I think you’ve answered all my questions. Thank you, my King. Did you have questions from the Federal level, Trevor?”

Trevor nodded. “I just want to clarify something you said, as I think it will bear the federal platform. When you said where you’re going, you don’t need pipelines. How does that work? I’m specifically thinking about the old Energy East pipeline, Quebec won’t allow through their province. We can’t get Western Crude to the refineries in the Maritimes.”

Mark smiled. “Are you familiar with our garbage collection and recycling system? It’d be much on the same lines as that. We could literally have a collection tank in Alberta with a tap in New Brunswick. Or you could have a tap in Asia or Europe or anywhere in the world. No dirty, slow, environmentally damaging tankers required!”

Trevor smiled. “That might be huge on the federal platform. We could create jobs refining the raw products anywhere that jobs are really needed and then the product can be delivered direct, without having to dig up the ground and build a pipeline. That’s the only question I had for you. Thank you, my King!”

Mark said, “If that is all, I must get back to my previous commitments.”

The liaison disconnected the two Canadians and thanked Mark for making himself available. She confirmed that they now knew Mark’s stance on the exploitation of natural resources and clarified it in more general terms, “If it’s an existing business that’s profitable and is cleaner than other similar businesses elsewhere in the world, continue to develop it and profit, just don’t start new destructive ventures.”

Mark nodded. “That pretty much sums it up.”

She smiled as she disconnected the call. “Thank you, my King!”

Just as Mark was leaving the outreach centre, Cricket informed him, “There’s a ship coming into Hubbard. When challenged, they said they were emissaries on a diplomatic mission. They’re relatively unarmed compared to the 2 groups of ships we’ve turned away so far. They’ve only got two small cannons and the few men onboard have simple single shot pistols, so we’re allowing them to proceed to the port. By the way, nearly 75% of all residences on the island are upgraded.”

He continued outside where Edward, Elizabeth, Jonah, Rebecca and Sandra were talking with the rest of the gang about golfing.

Mark stopped by and picked Joseph up out of his saucer as the happy little boy smiled and tried to reach for the cowboy hat. They rubbed noses for a second, then Mark gave him a kiss and put the giggling boy back into his saucer, where he grabbed his bottle and drank.

Annabelle kissed Mark, “So we’re going to get a full round of golf in today? Edward and Jonah want to do the local course, but I was kind of looking forward to doing a full round at Hope.”

Mark looked indifferent. “You can go to whichever course you want. I’m not sure I’ll be able to do a full round this afternoon. They’ve notified me that there’s a trade envoy sailing in from another country and should reach port in Hubbard within the hour. I want to be there when they first contact the new Colonia.”

Edward immediately agreed. “I wouldn’t mind being there for that as well. We can golf any day we want, but this is like seeing your child take its first steps.”

Jonah said, “I’m going golfing with everyone else.”

Mark kissed Annabelle and said they’d try to be back by suppertime and to let him know where to meet them. The round should take most of the afternoon, so they’d likely just eat at whatever place they went to.

Edward gave Elizabeth a kiss and said, “If you’re going golfing, stick with the Queen and we’ll meet up with you.”

Mark and Edward then proceeded to the roof transit zone and were soon on their way to Hubbard.

With Federation City being fairly central to the island, it only took a few minutes until the lift started descending towards the bay. Hubbard was a very spread out community, with many docks and boats dotting the bay. As they floated over the bustling community, the scene was a mimicry of what was happening in Federation City, as they could see houses being constructed all over the place.

As they exited the lift atop the outreach centre, Cricket told Mark, “I notified the mayor via his terminal once the ship had voiced their intentions and you indicated you were coming. He just left a few minutes ago, so you’ll meet him at the dock.”

Edward suggested, “We should probably stop and let the mayor know what’s going on, so he’s not surprised to see us.”

Mark laughed, “He’s already aware of what’s going on; he’s down at the dock already.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m the King of the Federation. I’m in charge of Federation security. If anything happens on any Federated planet, the system notifies me through my wrist communication device. Which reminds me, we should probably get you and all the mayors setup with a wrist comm.”

“What does that do for us?”

“It’s kind of like having access to the computer terminal in your office anywhere you go. The device embeds itself under your skin so you don’t even know it’s there.”

“How do I get one of those?”

“You’d have to visit the medibay up on the space station. The medibeds up there can do way more than the basic ones in the outreach centre.”

“We have a space station?”

“Yes, it’s a standard requirement when you join the Federation. The space station provides emergency services such as fire, rescue, medical and security, plus it’s an interplanetary transportation hub for people and freight. If we have time this afternoon, maybe you and I can run up there. In fact, that’s a great idea! I’ll tell Annabelle to take everyone to the Space Station after golf and we can meet them up there. I could do with eating something other than the food at the outreach centre.”

They had been walking while they were talking, and Cricket had been giving Mark directions through his thoughts. Soon they approached the mayor and some of his staff near the dock, with a man waving flags to signal the visitors.

They anchored the large ship in the bay, easily many times larger than any of the other ships in the harbour.

Standing with the mayor and his men, the mayor, Fred, greeted Mark and Edward as they waited for a rowboat, with roughly half a dozen people, making its way toward the dock.

As the row boat got closer to the dock, you could see the confusion on the occupants’ faces.

Edward laughed. “They don’t know what to think. They probably assumed that we were simple, unsophisticated people, but all the buildings around the bay are way more modern than anything they’ve ever encountered.”

Fred looked at both Edward and Mark and said, “I’m not sure if I should be the one to greet the visitor? When my Senator and my King are both here, I’m a pretty low rung on a very tall ladder.”

Mark said, “This is your port, and this is the sort of thing you do. Take the lead.”

As the obvious leader, a man dressed in a fancy black robe was helped out of the boat and onto the dock. Once standing on the solid dock, the man looked over his robe brushing away some invisible specks of dust and smoothing out some barely visible creases, but said nothing.

Fred extended his hand in greeting. “Welcome to Hubbard, my name is Fred and I am the mayor of this city.”

Maybe the man hadn’t heard Fred, but the robed man made no move to acknowledge or return the greeting. He simply stood there until another man holding what looked like three sticks or scrolls or something tucked under his arm, stepped up and said, “I present to you Bishop Francis, emissary to Cardinal Lothar of Corinth and Pope Marston of Alexandria.”

The Bishop smiled as he extended his hand from beneath his robe, a large ring clearly visible on his finger. His majordomo said, “Kneel in the presence of his holiness and kiss the ring.”

Fred looked over his shoulder toward Mark and Edward as if asking what he should do, but both Mark and Edward simply shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads. All of them trying not to laugh.

The smug look on the Bishop’s face disappeared when none of the men showed any inclinations of worshipping him. One of the other men pulled out a pistol and waved it around at the three men, saying, “You will kneel to his holiness!”

Mark waved his hand, and the man fell to the dock, stunned, “Do not threaten my people! We welcomed you as a diplomatic guest. This does not give you the right to threaten us simply because we won’t kneel before you. If you have nothing worthwhile to trade while you are here, please go back to your ship and return to wherever you came from.”