May 5, 2440, 10:10 AM CST
Matt stepped far enough away from the cameras that the microphones would catch wind and engine noise before they caught him.
“Dave,” he called.
Dave looked up from the line of incoming vehicles, one hand already raised to stop a farm truck from cutting across the path of an ambulance. “Tell me this is not another one of your plans that starts with, ‘How many people can we move before anyone notices?’”
“It is exactly that.”
“Fuck.”
Matt ignored him and keyed Pam.
She answered on the second ring. “I am already making lists.”
“Good. I need every available bed, room, apartment, empty house, livable farmhouse, bunkhouse, barn apartment, church basement, school space, and habitable storage room within ten to fifteen minutes of the homestead.”
“That is not a list. That is a census.”
“Then start with the things that have doors, water, toilets, and keys you can get before dark.”
Pam went quiet for half a second, which meant she was moving from complaint into execution. “Arrow Rock proper first?”
“Not the empty houses that would cause too many problems, but yes Arrow Rock first. I know there is not much except with Eric. Get him down here with one of the girls. I have a dollar that says it is KC he brings, too. Have Kenner run back to town and start airing the Main Street apartments. I want to know what is actually open, not what technically exists.”
“Some of those upstairs apartments are full of junk.”
“Then mark them junk-full. Pass the list to Annie, and she can commandeer some of Dave’s boys and girls. They are arriving by the truckload. Kenner is in charge; look into getting someone to sponsor her. If she is not on the quarterly list for citizenship, there better be a damned good reason why.”
Dave stepped closer, lowering his voice. “What is your plan for Eric? Also, no dice on that bet; as soon as he leaves, the trumpet will come out.”
“Let her practice in the back of the truck. Tell him to come down for the neural scan and language training. I want him here before noon if possible. We will send him back with some translator units, supplies, and as many stable families as he can absorb without turning the building into a fistfight.”
Pam snorted. “Eric will ask if this comes with hazard pay.”
“Tell him it comes with aliens and broken toilets.”
“He will understand that better.”
Dave glanced toward the ship. “Camps? They are packed in there pretty tight,” he said, looking at his watch. “Fresh air would do them good and let the kids have somewhere to play.”
Matt looked past him toward the park and orchard blocks south and west of the house. The old working landscape was already assembling itself in his head: irrigation lines, bark paths, loading parks, orchard lanes wide enough for ATVs, the playground park, the winter survival sites, the shaded garden breaks, the half-acre pockets where harvest kids camped every summer.
“Yes. Get them some fresh air and open sky, but get someone on that runway now. You have maybe two hours before the first plane is on its way back,” Matt said. “Use the harvest-camp layouts. Neat rows, taped plots, water where we have it, showers where we can get them. Scout groups and local youth leads, one park each. Adults and veterans float between them.”
Pam’s voice sharpened. “How many?”
“As many as we can stand up before sunset. Give Krieger one. He is a good kid, and I think he is up for the challenge.”
“That is also not a number,” Pam said patiently while trying not to show any motherly pride in Krieger.
“It is the only honest one I have. Dave?”
“Pam, let’s start with 1160 families today. We will use Parks 1 – 12, 16 – 32, 48 – 66, and 72-76. Those are already on pallets and ready to go for harvest workers. I will keep my fab teams working so we can have another hundred open tomorrow for another 2000 families.”
Dave clicked off and pointed toward the south pasture. “I can have a field strip started in twenty minutes. That pasture was grazed last month. Doze it, roll it, mark it. Good enough I would land on it,” he said, thinking about it, and pulled out his phone.
“Annie, send me Joel, Eddie, and Tina. Tell them their Uncle Matt is paying them to camp out on the farm. Have Beth and Carmen prep the basement rec room for a sleepover. I will be bringing people home for dinner. I don’t know what they eat, but we will figure it out. Love you.”
“Do it. One hundred feet wide, mile long if you can get it. Keep it out of the way of the ship’s heat plume and do not block the road,” Matt was already telling Aaron Stammers and Frieda Lee, who had done two tours as a combat engineer.
“Do you want lights?” Frieda asked.
“Yes,” Dave added. “Get it rolled flat first and I will see to the lights personally before I go home,” he said, raising his hand for a moment before he got lost in the discussion and called on the radio. “Pam, you can add Joel, Eddie and Tina as camp leads,” he said naming of three of his four older kids, and then got right back into the thick of things.
Pam cut in. “Protected housing are we using this too?”
Matt’s jaw tightened. “Angelina owns that call. I want the Homes for Girls capacity pulled, but do not fill the occupied cul-de-sacs, yet. They still need slack for our own people. Widows with children, sibling groups, and older orphans go there only after Angelina or someone she trusts sees the placement list.”
“Empty cul-de-sacs?”
“V’ren-majority if we need them today. Human anchor in each if we can swing it. If not, one anchor per cluster and daily route checks. Jimmy Chakrobarty called Dave before dawn asking where he was needed. Find him. He needs a shot at proving himself if he can ask that question.”
“He is already on the way,” Pam said. “West Glasgow kid with the purple truck?”
“That is him.”
“I can use him.”
“You can trust him,” Dave said. “He asked before there was work to ask for.”
“Good,” Pam said. “I will put him on a cul-de-sac once I know which one is opening first.”
Matt watched T’mari speaking to Martin Shah and the three camera kids near the ramp. She was careful with them, too careful maybe, but she was trying. That mattered.
“Pam,” he said. “I also need the town quiet.”
“You want miracles now?”
“No. I want useful panic. Get people cooking, sorting, hauling, sewing, washing sheets, opening sheds, checking spare rooms. Make them too busy to stand around inventing rumors.”
“That I can do.”
“And run anything with children or unstable households by Angelina.”
“I always do.”
“I know.”
Pam said, “How many are we really talking?”
Matt looked at the broken ship, at the ramp, at the green faces beginning to appear in the shadowed opening. He thought of beds, bread, water, roads, toilets, frightened children, old women with spare rooms, men with trucks, girls with clipboards, empty cul-de-sacs, farmhouses waiting for lights in the windows, and every fool who would drive down his roads by noon to see if the rumors were true.
“Too many,” he said. “But not more than we can start with.”
Dave put two fingers in his mouth and whistled hard enough to turn heads across the yard. “All right, people! If you are standing still, you are wrong. Trucks to the south lane. Ambulances stay clear of the ramp. Farm rigs with open beds, line up by the machine shed. Anyone who brought a drone and does not have permission to fly it can put it back in the goddamn truck.”
Pam was already talking to someone else, voice brisk and merciless. “No, I do not care if your aunt said the apartment is sentimental. Does it have water? Then find the key.”
Matt let himself breathe once.
First contact was over.
Now came the part where people needed somewhere to sleep.
