ARCADIA (COLONY Book 2) Read online

  Books in the EMPIRE Series

  by Richard F. Weyand:

  EMPIRE: Reformer

  EMPIRE: Usurper

  EMPIRE: Tyrant

  EMPIRE: Commander

  EMPIRE: Warlord

  EMPIRE: Conqueror

  by Stephanie Osborn:

  EMPIRE: Imperial Police

  EMPIRE: Imperial Detective

  EMPIRE: Imperial Inspector

  by Richard F. Weyand:

  EMPIRE: Intervention

  EMPIRE: Investigation

  EMPIRE: Succession

  EMPIRE: Renewal

  EMPIRE: Resistance

  EMPIRE: Resurgence

  Books in the Childers Universe

  by Richard F. Weyand:

  Childers

  Childers: Absurd Proposals

  Galactic Mail: Revolution

  A Charter For The Commonwealth

  Campbell: The Problem With Bliss

  by Stephanie Osborn:

  Campbell: The Sigurdsen Incident

  ARCADIA

  A Colony Story

  by

  RICHARD F. WEYAND

  Copyright 2021 by Richard F. Weyand

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN 978-1-954903-03-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover Credits

  Cover Art: Paola Giari and Luca Oleastri,

  www.rotwangstudio.com

  Back Cover Photo: Oleg Volk

  Many thanks to

  王睿

  for verifying Chinese cultural accuracy.

  Published by Weyand Associates, Inc.

  Bloomington, Indiana, USA

  June 2021

  CONTENTS

  2245

  Arrival

  The Basics

  Setting Up Camp

  Livestock, Toilets, Food, And Bedding

  Second Day

  Moving

  Cubic

  Quant #1

  First Steps

  2295

  Big Trouble

  The Chen

  The Meeting

  Plan CC

  Address By The Chen

  Opening The Convention

  Forgotten Legacy

  The Push To The Finish

  Plebiscite And Celebration

  Quant #2

  Meddling And Infrastructure

  2345

  A Precocious Problem

  Arcadia City

  Getting Settled, Getting Around

  The University of Arcadia

  The Beach

  Commitment

  Study In Earnest

  Revelation

  Back On The Path

  Quant #3

  Silicon, Carbon, and Mathematics

  2362

  Government Project

  The Prime Minister And The Bureaucrat

  Preparations

  Failure

  Recrimination And Cancellation

  Politics, Purchase, And Personnel

  Preparations

  Success!

  Epilogue

  Quant #4

  Geodesic

  Author’s Afterword

  2245

  Arrival

  A blue haze developed over the display screen at the front of the passenger container. The blue haze flashed suddenly and was gone.

  A planet floated in the display, taking up half the display on the left.

  “We have arrived at Arcadia,” Janice Quant’s voice announced.

  Perhaps two minutes later, gravity abruptly returned. There was a bit of a tremor as the building settled a bit.

  “Peggy, look at that,” Matt said.

  In the display, Matt could see from their location on the top of the residence hall all the way to the horizon. There were coastal grasslands close around them, with some structures in the middle distance Matt recognized as the barns.

  Well beyond the barns, there was lush vegetation, with some small trees. Some looked like they were laid out in a grid, like orchards. In the far distance, blue-gray mountains marched across the horizon, falling off to the sea in the right side of the display.

  A cheer went up in the compartment, and there was applause.

  They had arrived on Arcadia.

  The return of gravity was a relief. They had been in zero gravity, strapped into their seats, for almost two hours, since the big cargo shuttle carrying the passenger container had throttled back on reaching orbit. There had then been the transport of the shuttle and its payload by the interstellar probe to the big interstellar transporter. The passenger container had been latched by the shuttle to the roof of one of the colony buildings, where they had waited until everyone was aboard.

  Arcadia had been the third planet where the transporter stopped. The interstellar flights themselves were instantaneous, but there was a delay at each planet to transport the colony buildings to the surface. Then the next planet, then Arcadia.

  After four years of planning and training, they had arrived.

  “Hi, everybody. This is Mark Kendall,” the voice came from the speakers in the passenger container. “We’ve arrived, so there’ll be no more zero gravity.”

  The chairman of the Arcadia ruling council paused for the cheering in his container to die down.

  “We’re here now, and there’s no hurry, so let’s make it a safe debarkation. There are some ladders and steps to climb down, and we don’t want anybody getting hurt. So let’s all take our time.

  “It’s about ten o’clock in the morning here, so we’ve gone back a couple hours from the time zone in Texas.

  “Our only jobs today are to get everybody into their temporary quarters in the colony buildings, and to make sure everybody has food and water available.

  “Tomorrow we are going to start putting up houses and stringing fencing so we can let the livestock out. The livestock is all on time-release tranquilizers, and they have food for now, but we need to get them out grazing soon.

  “But for today, let’s get everybody into temporary quarters. It’s going to be crowded, but it won’t be sleeping out on the grass like in Texas, so we’re moving up one step at a time.

  “Now I’m going to turn over the intercom to each of the building managers, so they can talk to the passenger compartments on their own buildings.”

  There was a pause, and then another voice came over the speakers.

  “Hi, everybody. If you’re hearing me, you’re in one of the passenger containers on the roof of the hospital. My name is Meghana Khatri, and I am the administrator of the hospital. I also sit on the council as head of the health department.

  “The first thing is to get everybody a bunk room in the hospital so we all have a comfortable place to sleep tonight. It’s going to be pretty spartan for now, and we’re going to be crowded.

  “All the registered groups have been housed together. For the rest of you, think of it as an opportunity to make new friends. We’re all in this together, so let’s pull together like a team.

  “When you debark the passenger container, take the supplies box under your seat with you. Yes, we’re still on rations and bottled water for the moment. We are going to try to get the kitchens up and running in the next few days, but there’s a lot of work to do first. Running electric and water from the power plant and septic lines back is an early priority. In the meantime, we’re still on MREs and portable potties.

  “With regard to wandering around outside the building, you’re free to do that, but stay in sight of the building. There are some big wild fauna here, transplanted from Earth, especially some of the big cats. In the daytime you should be OK, but keep your eyes open. There’s safety in numbers, so it’s better to stay in groups than to go wa
ndering off by yourself.

  “If you do get in trouble with the local fauna, call the emergency number on your communicator and run like hell for the closest building. Dodge a bit left and right so snipers on the roof can get a clean shot at the animal. It’s easier to stay in a big group than to try to outrun a big cat, though, so remember that.

  “With all that said, let’s start exiting the containers now, and heading down into the building. Our staff people should have been able to get in place while we were talking, and they can help you find your room assignments.

  “Welcome to Arcadia, everybody. Khatri out.”

  Everybody reached under their seat for their supply box and got them out. Once again, it was a briefcase sized box with a handle, full of bottled water and MREs.

  Then they waited for the compartment to be opened.

  Each passenger container had three decks, and the thirty-six containers had been delivered to the roofs of the four colony residence halls – the generic name for the hospitals, office buildings, administrative buildings, and school buildings – in stacks of two. The hospital staff started emptying the five stacks of people containers on the hospital roof – thirty thousand people in all – with the bottom decks of the five bottom containers. That was easiest, because no stairs were required.

  The Chen-Jasic clan was seated on the middle deck of the lower container of their stack. When it was their turn, the passenger compartment doors opened and one big fellow with a bullhorn of a voice stepped in. Like everyone else, he wore coveralls and booties, though his were in a size extra large.

  “OK, everybody,” bellowed Stanley Twardowski, World Authority Police Sergeant Major (retired). “Grab your supply boxes and queue up. We’re just gonna start with the front row and work our way back. That’s the easiest way to keep groups together. There’s one stair ladder to go down to the roof, and it’s steep, so we’re going to go down it backwards. You all already have your room assignments, and you got all day to get there, so let’s take it nice and slow and safe, all right?”

  Before they left Texas, Robert Jasic, Chen LiQiang, and Rachel Conroy – as the nominal heads of their groups – had gone to the planet administration table to one side of the planet square, the marked-out open space in which all the colonists for Arcadia were camping out in the grass. There they had registered their individual groups as being combined into the Chen-Jasic group.

  Jasic’s group was twenty-seven people from the suburbs of Raleigh-Durham in the Carolina administrative region. Five couples – minus Harold Munson, whom Betsy Reynolds had divorced after another one of his physical abuses – and their total of eighteen children ages fourteen to nineteen, now all paired up as married couples.

  Rachel Conroy, her partner Jessica Murphy, and their friends, Gary Rockham and his partner Dwayne Hennessey, were all from downtown Raleigh-Durham. They had met the Jasic group at the shuttleport in the Carolina administrative region before the trip to Texas and merged with them, there being strength in numbers.

  The Chen group was Chen LiQiang and thirty members of his family from rural China. LiQiang was the paterfamilias of the close-knit clan. He and Robert Jasic had negotiated the alliance of their groups on the prairie in Texas where they awaited transport to orbit. The peasant farmers had wanted to team up with a group with more diverse and modern skills, whereas Bob Jasic and Maureen Griffith had seen the Chen’s farming skills as a must-have for their own group.

  As a result of registering the combination of the groups, the sixty-two members of the Chen-Jasic clan all had room assignments in the hospital together – two rooms, numbered 427 and 428, presumably on the fourth floor of the large building. They would be thirty or more to a room for now, until the temporary housing was set up, but they wouldn’t be out in the rain.

  Matt Jasic could see his father talking with Chen LiQiang, the grandfather of the Chen household. They both nodded and then each spoke to one of their group nearby, Chen LiQiang to his eldest son, Chen GangHai, and Jasic to Maureen Griffith. The whisper campaign spread as they stood up and queued for the door.

  “Bob and the Chen say we are one group. Do not split into Chinese and American when we get to our rooms. Mix it up. Pass it on,” Jonah Thompson said to Matt.

  “Makes sense,” Matt said, and he turned to his wife Peggy Reynolds and repeated the message.

  Peggy passed it on to her sister Sally, standing behind her.

  Then their row was moving, and Matt Jasic followed Jonah to the door. It was about eight feet down to the roof of the hospital, and there was a steep stair setup, like a ladder on a ship, with two railings to hang onto. Matt turned around, winked at Peggy, and headed down the stairs.

  He waited for her at the bottom. The weather was very pleasant, and the sun was bright in the sky. He saw an edge of clouds moving off on the horizon. Matt sniffed the air, and could smell the ocean, so it was only a few miles distant. He could hear multiple diesel generators running.

  Matt knew that there was basically no axial tilt on Arcadia, so this would likely be the weather all year round. It looked like one of those special spring days in the Carolinas, when the weather was absolutely perfect. But on Arcadia, that would be the weather every day.

  There was a staffer waving them toward the stairs.

  “Go ahead and down the stairs to your floor. The first digit of your room number is the floor. The lower numbers are at this end, and they go up toward the other end of the building.”

  They followed the line of people into the rooftop stair enclosure and down into the building. There were lights operating in the stairwell, and they continued down twenty half-flights of the zig-zag stairwell until they got to the fourth floor. People were leaving the stairwell into different floors as they descended, but all the members of the Chen-Jasic group kept on until the fourth floor.

  The hallways had lights on, too, but not at normal office levels. They were on at emergency levels, running off the generator. Matt knew diesel fuel would be precious until they had a refinery built. He thought he remembered that a refinery was one of the first projects for the metafactory.

  There were multiple hallways, but signs guided them to which hallway had their room numbers. They followed other members of the clan into one of the two rooms, and found the room had five sets of three-high metal bunk bed frames in it. There was almost no other furniture, and the bunk beds were crammed into a room that would have another purpose in the future.

  The one other piece of furniture in the room was a single chair, in front of a 3-D display projector mounted on the wall.

  The room was bright with light coming in the large windows, and the lights were off. The sliding windows were actually latched open, which didn’t make sense to Matt until he realized the building had been transported from vacuum to a planetary atmosphere. Without the windows being open, they would have blown in.

  People were settling into tailor seat on the floor or sitting on one of the bottom-level bed frames.

  “Well, we’re here,” Matt said. “Now what?”

  “Why don’t we see if there are any announcements on the display?” Peggy asked.

  “Would the network even be up yet?” Jonah asked. “And would the display run on the emergency power?”

  “One way to find out,” Matt said.

  The big nineteen-year-old sat in the chair in front of the display. He tried to slide it back, but it was tack-welded to the metal floor. He shrugged and tried to turn on the display. It remained blank.

  “Not up yet, I guess,” Matt said.

  “Well, I know there’s work to be done,” Jonah said. “I would just as soon get going on it than to be sitting around.”

  “Work is good,” MingWei said. “There is much to be done.”

  At that moment, the display came on by itself. It read ‘Announcements’ across the screen.

  “Huh,” Matt said. “I guess I was just a bit quick on the draw.

  He scrolled down the list.

  “Looks lik
e they’re getting mattresses out of the warehouse and distributing them to everyone. They need people for unloading on the dock and then distributing within the hospital. Who’s in?”

  Matt took a count of hands, and then signed them up in the display.

  “OK, it says to report to the docks in half an hour. They’re still unloading passenger containers.”

  “How are they getting mattresses to the docks?” Jonah asked.

  “I guess they had electric trucks charging up in the power plant since Earth orbit, and they just called them to auto-drive over to the warehouse. They’re being loaded with containers now.”

  “How’d they do that with no roads?” Jonah asked.

  Matt shrugged.

  “Beats me. I guess there was a clear path from the power plant to the warehouse. It’s only a couple miles. This has all been so well-planned, they wouldn’t have missed a bet there.”

  “Makes sense,” Jonah said.

  “Let’s get a quick bite to eat first,” Matt said. “We didn’t have any breakfast.”

  When the display came on in the next room, Robert Jasic motioned Chen LiQiang to the chair, but Chen demurred.

  “Please, Robert. Be seated. Computers are not my skill.”

  Jasic sat in the chair and Chen settled into tailor seat alongside the chair to watch.

  Jasic scrolled down the announcements.

  “They need manpower at the docks,” he said.

  “I just came from next door,” Maureen Griffith said. “Matt and MingWei have that covered.”

  “OK. Good.”

  Jasic kept scrolling.

  “They have a sign-up for property here in the town for houses. We can sign up as a group, and we’ll get assigned early because of our size.”

  “Is there a map?” Chen asked.

  “Yes, I think so,” Jasic said. “Yes. Here it is.”

  Jasic selected the map of the colony and Chen studied it closely. It showed the cluster of major buildings in the center, and then a grid of streets around it, with ten blocks to the mile. There were eight or nine square miles around the downtown gridded out for the hundred thousand colonists.