When new people came to join the African missions they brought with them various misunderstandings, which the other members of the original expedition tried to correct. Claudette and Ferdinand were usually faced with this task, as they were they were a respectable married couple, beyond reproach.
“I don’t understand and I’m a bit shocked”, one woman admitted. “There are so many young people, unmarried, but sexually active. Doesn’t this set a bad example for the Africans?”
“We are not here to bring morality, madam”, Claudette answered. “But we do. We bring compatible people together, people so compatible that they stay together. Many marry. Depending on local customs, it may be necessary to marry for them to get together at all. That is not our concern, but yes, that’s what happens. We help them to find love, madam. What happens then is up to them.”
Others were less surprised by the sexual activities of the young people on the mission, noting that they were teenagers and old enough, but didn’t understand why teenage Amy seemed to be leading the whole project.
“You must understand, sir, Mr. Green’s children are unique”, Ferdinand said. “I have watched Aemillia in action for months now. She is gifted, and though she says the gift was just early childhood education from expensive tutors, not genetic, I am not convinced of it. Her father lacked such advantages but is a brilliant man, a great man.”
Amy was in fact a high-school dropout, but seemed to have more education than a college graduate. She could easily explain difficult concepts.
“In the 19th century Americans and Europeans brought their medicine to Africa and killed more people than they helped because microorganisms and the spread infectious diseases weren’t understood. Then they poisoned people with dangerous chemicals such as the mercury used to mine gold in some places. They brought bad social technology too, ways of seizing power and organizing men into armies. Slavery has existed in Africa forever, but Westerners organized it in brutal ways. The social technology they brought was primitive and harmful.”
“This sounds familiar enough, Miss Green. What is new about what you do? Aren’t you just another non-profit organization opposing militarism and abuse of power?”
“No. We seek to give individuals tools with which they can unite with the right people, find the right work for them to do it and the best place to live. Tools carefully designed so that using them will not harm society as a whole. So they can improve their own individual social environments without damaging the global one. There wasn’t anything which could do that until about 15 years ago, about the beginning of this century, and even then it was mostly ignored, barely visible underneath the social pollution spread by the Internet.”
“But don’t these computer systems you are using connect with the Internet?”
“Yes, but indirectly. They are not set up to pull in data indiscriminately through broad searches, or to broadcast information globally. They can, but the software discourages it. Or let’s say that it provides good ways to communicate with the right people and exchange the right information, instead.”
These conversations occurred in south-central Ethiopia, where the climate and vegetation varied a lot. It was here that the question of splitting up the main body of the mission arose.
Africa is big. The original plan to travel from south to north ignored the large western bulge, though it was familiar to more than one member of the expedition. Ferdinand had been born in and spent his childhood in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, living in the capital and largest city, Kinshasa. When he was eleven, his well-educated family moved to Abidjan, in the Ivory Coast. He thought that a good destination for a second mission, one that would travel south of the Sahara desert. From where they were in south-central Ethiopia it would be about 4700 miles to Abidjan. A long way to travel, compared to their current destination. Alexandria was about 2700 miles away.
Claudette would be with Ferdinand, of course, no question. If he turned west, so would she. The idea appealed to her, since her family had done much missionary work in parts of Africa which spoke French. She and her brother Pierre actually knew the Democratic Republic of the Congo quite well, though they rarely went as far west as Kinshasa. That large central African nation was where she had learned Swahili, a language common there. Her parents had encouraged her to learn it because it was more generally useful than the various minor languages of that country.
Pierre felt the same desire to go towards the countries of the former French West Africa. If he decided to go that way, Cindy would go with him, no question. Allan and Bruce wanted to go with Cindy, but there might have been a conflict if Allan’s Kadijah had wanted to take the northerly route, going along the Mediterranean coast towards her birthplace, Algiers.
“No, Allan. I know the north coast, it is the centre and west coast which attracts me, for I’m a curious girl. If Cindy wants to go west, I would like us to go with her.
This much was decided. Ferdinand and Claudette would travel through the central Africa towards the west, taking the ABC kids and their lovers with them. About half of the current mission would accompany them. The other half would go north and then west.
“Algiers is about as far west of Alexandria is about as far as we are down here. That would make it an end point 5400 miles from here”, Amy noted. But it would be easier travel than Ferdinand’s route. We might make it to our separate destinations at about the same time. If we keep on as we have been, that would be about a year from now. Are we willing to spend at least that much time on this mission? I am. That and more.”
Roger said, “I go with my Amy. If she wants to go on longer, then so do I. May I suggest that the two branches meet up somewhere along the west coast? Uh, say, whatever is along the seacoast of West Sahara or Mauritania?”
“Yes, Roger, we could just follow the coast, more or less meeting wherever we meet”, Paul agreed.
“I don’t think so”, Amy said. “We don’t want a large group of trucks arriving in such an unpopulated desert area. I think that once we get to our separate destinations we do something else, sending trucks by ship somewhere. I don’t know yet. We can decide when the time comes. Meanwhile, who goes on which branch of the mission?”
“We wish to go east, to Kalili’s homeland, if you do not object”, Simon Relantes said, “then north, as originally planned.”
In confidence, Stephanie mentioned a desire to be photographed in front of the pyramids, which, she said, would be great publicity for the mission. Finally away from the attractive Cindy, Stephanie would be the principal object of attention for the media covering the trek towards Alexandria.
It would be difficult to part from Claudette and Ferdinand, but the western mission seemed important. The couple wanted to lead it, and probably should. So, Westward ho! They would follow the line which marked the north edge of the great east-west African savannah. Allan, Bruce and Cindy would go with them, representing the Green Family. Going with his Cindy, Pierre Herbert would thus be travelling in the same mission as his sister, Claudette.
Antonia Green was close to the younger Amy and would travel with her, briefly east then north, along with Simon and Kilali, meanwhile helping to organize the mission. As might be expected from their later history, Amy and Antonia worked together almost perfectly, both being excellent leaders without any conflict between them.
Once this decision was made and communicated back home to Mission Control, Amy was asked to speak with her father.
“Daddy! How are you? How is everything back home?”
“Good, Aemillia, very good. I have some things to ask you about. First, I am landing trucks for Future’s project at the port of Lagos, from which they will go overland through Nigeria and Niger to southern Algeria where her site is. I can include missionary trucks if you want – probably a good idea, if it’s what you want.”
“Yes, Daddy, yes. Please do. And could you send some trucks south from Lagos? Almost another mission’s worth. We haven’t done much on the west coast yet.”
“Of course, if that’s what you want. There are actually a few family members anxious to be on a mission. You have inspired so many of us. Too many, actually. I don’t know how your mother and I are going to keep your sister Frances from going.”
“Why would you, Daddy? I feel protective of her too, but she will be 16 in a couple of months. That’s how old I was when our mission started.”
“Ouch. She’s so young. And if she goes, then Antonia and Allan’s sister Laurie will insist on going with her. Sarah will be furious. Laurie is our youngest.”
“Yes. I know, not Sarah’s youngest anymore, and certainly not yours, by sixteen years or so. How old is your youngest, Daddy?”
“Uh, well, eleven days now. Her name is Symmetry. Symmetry Teela Green, after her mother.”
“I see. You old rogue. Well, always happy to have another half-sister. Send her on our mission to Outer-Mongolia, sixteen years from now.”
“Don’t you think you’ll have already conquered the world by then?”
“Perhaps. If you’ll keep making trucks for us. Boats, planes and tracked snow-vehicles, too, please. Just kidding.”
“You think you are just kidding, do you? Well, get back to me on that when your ambitions expand.”
Aemillia loved her father more than she could ever express. A contemporary of Future Green, they had been friendly rivals for his affections, both near the top of the list, though he had no favourites, of course.
As the much expanded original mission split in two, trucks for a third mission began to accumulate in Lagos, while a few travelled in groups of four towards southern Algeria. In northern Nigeria and south-central Niger pairs of missionary trucks would split off to work various villages, while the others continued towards the site of Future Green’s massive solar energy and greenhouse project.
Among the members of the original two truck team, Kilali’s pregnancy was ever more visible. The northern expedition would not reach the big cities by the time she was due, but she could fly to Cairo or Alexandria with her husband when the time came.
Travelling now westward, Claudette was also pregnant, and would also need to fly somewhere away from that group of missionaries, probably to Lagos in Nigeria.
Kilali and Claudette both felt ill in the mornings so they had taken the opportunity to get one of the new trucks. That made it possible for them to sleep easier, deal with their early morning nausea and rise slowly.
Kilali accepted the dangers of pregnancy on an expedition like this. She didn’t understand that pregnancies could be relatively safe and not too unpleasant; it was childbirth she feared. Claudette worried about both, but would certainly give birth in some hospital somewhere, and knew it. She’d told Kilali that they both would, though thousands of miles away from one another, but the African girl did not fully understand what a hospital was. So far the teams had passed by clinics and met a few doctors, but never been to a city with a real hospital.
Morning sickness aside, the system missionary teams worked hard, making quite an impact on the regions they traversed. Amy started to keep track of the number of people they’d met who had already been served by some of their African successors. One day on their travels, she spoke with Antonia and her lover, Abdul Lacrief.
“You know, guys, some of our work is being reflected back to us. I guess it’s because we haven’t kept to a straight line, but every couple of days the others are reporting a gotcha – a person who has heard of us and maybe actually been served by someone else we’ve affected.”
“Interesting, I wonder how big a wake we are leaving behind us. A wave of change, you might say”, her half-sister replied. “It could be quite large. Should ask Mission Control to investigate. I bet they have some idea, from the machines themselves, you know, satellite communications.”
“That’s right! I’ll get through to them. Should have done that before now.”
Rather than sending numbers, Nestor Green sent Amy an image showing a map of Africa with active machines in it. “We are monitoring their work and giving them additional instructions by text and phone, Amy. So I think people running those machines are doing well, mostly.”
The map showed more changes farther back along their path, with much of South Africa being done already. This was news and had to be communicated to the others at once. Kilali quickly saw the implications of what the map showed and would have jumped up and down with excitement except for the continuous full feeling in her expanding belly.
Though most of their work was local, in some ways the whole region they had worked with was a single pool. One way or another even a poor African person could manage to travel quite a distance, being able to reach another person or a job hundreds of miles away, maybe more. The system computers and software could work so well with such large pool sizes that many enthusiastic word of mouth reports attracted participants.
The photographers and reporters now with the teams for a few weeks at a time captured pictures of social tech missionaries at work, then their reluctant departures, sweetened by the sight of young Africans clutching their precious new machines, full of zeal and determination. One news team went along with a courier truck which resupplied the expeditions. These trucks set out regularly, also bringing mail, and would occasionally bring replacement personnel after some of the teachers and engineers were dropped off, if there were no native volunteers to fill those places.
The smaller crews of “guides” with hidden weapons stayed out of site, mostly, but watched out for bandits attracted by this display of wealth. With guides from several pairs of trucks now united, there was now an effective security force, frequently mentioned in the media. Security people hired by Sarah Rivers were also on site near the vehicles and near villages recently worked or soon to be worked, but these highly trained and highly paid experts were never noticed by anyone.
It is not actually known if these guards ever intercepted any potential troublemakers, but there were no visible problems in Africa at all during the course of the mission, so they may have done so, working behind the scenes. We know Sarah spent millions on security, but that is about all we know. Some people say that many of the security people eventually became missionaries themselves, but that is just a rumour.
At one point in their travels, processing towns near Kilali’s birthplace, the system sent out an urgent message for Kilali. There was a person she needed to meet. A truck containing Amy and Kilali was diverted a few miles to a village. Amy asked for a truck with a teacher and engineer to come along, just in case.
At the village a black girl roughly Kilali’s age ran up to the first truck and started shouting at it. Kilali jumped out and ran to the girl, hugging her and kissing her and crying and patting her arm and shoulder. In tears she dragged the girl to the driver’s window of the truck, which Amy was driving. In Swahili, simplified for Amy’s benefit, she said, “Cousin of cousin of me. Thought dead. Not dead. Lived. Cousin of cousin of me. Talks my talk! Talks my talk! My family not all dead! Cousin of cousin alive!”
Kilali would not be separated from this girl. She threatened to leave the expedition. She yelled at the girl. Finally the girl agreed to go with them. Amy nodded approval as the girl ran back to pack a bag. She had been staying with a kind person of another ethnic group or tribe who had known her father. Now she would come with Kilali.
That village proved rather badly in need of some kind of teacher and had a terrible water supply, so the teacher/engineer couple was dropped off here, along with a tent and a lot of supplies, including supplies for well digging and piping water, and simple pumps.
This left the back seat of one truck empty, so with some interchanging of personnel the new girl could be with her cousin. Amy turned the trucks around and headed back using GPS and radar to find the other trucks, then racing to catch up with them. As she did this, Roger got on the phone to another truck and spoke to Simon Relantes. “A strange thing just occured. The system found Kilali another survivor, a cousin of her cousin, a girl her own age who also speaks her native language.”
“Oh, yes, yes, that is too good to be true, oh that is the best news. Please let me speak to my wife.” Roger handed the phone to Kilali, who babbled at it excitedly. Then Kilali handed the phone to her distant cousin Kilodali, who listened in surprise to this talking thing, then hesitantly talked to it. It talked back, she did the same, then the Ethiopian teenager who had never seen a phone before carried on a long conversation with a man she did not know who spoke her language and claimed to be married to Kilali. Amazing.
Soon the trucks met up, and Dr. Relantes jumped out to seek his wife and her second cousin. He embraced Kilali, then turned to the other girl and started talking to her in her own language. Kilodali was astounded that this white man of great age could speak her language. He claimed to be the man who had talked to her on the little talking box. He claimed to Kilali’s husband. Kilali said he was and that he had started the baby which was making her belly bulge out. Kilodali was shocked, then pleased. Another little person would come out and soon speak their language. Her family not be dead was not gone and would grow again. She started to cry with joy.
Kilodali could not be separated from her cousin. They both wanted to sleep in one bed together. Kilali wanted Dr. Simon with her as well. The couple would temporarily suspend the marital relations which were already becoming difficult and sleep in a tent with Kilodali. The girl was still upset about everything that had happened to her and still had trouble sleeping, so Kilali hugged and tried to comfort her. She urged her husband to hug her as well. After a few nights of this, Kilali asked if Dr. Simon might marry Kilodali too.
“What was that, please, dear?”, he asked softly in her native tongue.
“Would you marry the cousin of my cousin too? She is very needy.”
“I would be willing to do this if you wished it.”
“I wish it.”
“Then I will go through the ritual with her.”
“There is not time for that. I will speak to her as your agent.”
“Please do, my love.”
“Cousin of my cousin. My husband agrees that he will marry you too, if you wish.”
“I would like very much to be married to such a great man, who speaks my language. If he gave me a baby, then another little person would speak it. I will accept and marry this man as his second wife.”
“Husband of mine, the cousin of my cousin agrees to marry you.”
Quickly, with unseemly haste, the mission was diverted to a nearby city. Amy got cash from one of the other Green family members, promising to replenish everyone’s supplies of the vital lubricant as soon as they got near a larger city that had a bank machine. This cash was applied in the usual African manner, and a marriage license was produced in record time. Some of this money was applied to an official of some sort, who did the marriage in Amharic. An assembly of 70 observers clapped and wept, then suddenly Dr. Simon Relantes of Cambridge, Massachusetts, had two legal wives, something impossible in his home country. Should he take them there, however, the marriages would be considered legal and he would not be guilty of bigamy. This fascinating fact was duly reported in the National Geographic magazine, which also had a picture of the happy family.
A tent was put up for the three people and that night Dr. Simon consummated his second marriage, with his first wife humming happily beside him. He was not unalterably opposed to this arrangement. Soon, he had the penetrating insight that he loved Kilodali too, and reached a comfortable conclusion that had him humming happily too. Though sore, his recently virgin bride was ecstatic. She was in a tent with two people who spoke her language, and the great man her cousin had married had just tried to put a baby in her. She hoped it worked. She wouldn’t want to go through that again.
It is to be reported to the great shame of them all that many men in the expedition neglected the extenuating circumstances of this union and felt not only envy but some annoyance at the older man with two young wives in his tent, especially as they saw the very full tent heave rhythmically. Some wondered about legally acquiring a tentful of women themselves, but the women they were with squashed this idea before it had even formed in their minds, with threats of dire physical violence and mutilation in the genital region.
“Don’t even think about taking on another woman”, Stephanie warned Paul, “or I will cut it off. At very least I’ll cut you off.”
Having two wives made it hard to fill a truck, so for the time being Simon drove with just his two wives as truckmates. As a new member of the expedition Kilodali would prove useful. Sitting together in the back seats, Kilali talked endlessly to her and taught her everything she knew. Kilodali brought language skills in other African languages and would be able to help with the mission, while sleeping regularly with Simon at night, in the hope of becoming pregnant.
Procreation was on the minds of many. Travelling with Allan Green on the western mission, Kadijah picked up on something he had mentioned, discovering that he had been selflessly contributing his genes to the growth of the Green Family since he had been sixteen. Allan explained that with the kind cooperation of various volunteers he now had several children.
“Oh, Allan. I am, I am so envious of those women. They have your baby, each of them, and I just have, well, yes, I have you, that is the important thing. But I envy them.”
“You want a baby?”
“Yes, yes, I do, I don’t want just you, I want to have what they have, your child. Will you make me pregnant?”
“Kadi, I love you. I would love to have a child with you. But only if you marry me first, before we try for one. Kadijah Barbusse, I love you and want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?”
“Al! Allan! Al, Al, my love, yes, I will marry you!”
Hearing about this though a videophone call on the other mission, Antonia was shocked at what her brother wanted to do, but she understood. He was in love and was an honourable man, though just 18. Yes, of course he would marry Kadijah. The first Green missionary to get married, he would surely not be the only one. Antonia suspected she would be married too, before long. Within the year. She loved Abdul, and he was an honourable man too.
Cindy and Bruce were both shocked at what Allan was going to do, though they liked Kadi. Bruce wondered about marrying Ileana, while Cindy hoped Pierre would marry her.
Some air travel would be necessary. Kadijah wanted to be married in Algiers, where her family lived. She didn’t want a very big ceremony, and they both wanted a quick marriage, but the various Green Family members in Africa wanted to be their. Allan was much loved and respected, while his bride-to-be was well-liked by everyone who knew her. Allan’s parents flew in to watch their son get married, Ken Green from Vancouver, Sarah Rivers from New York.
With Sarah came her eldest child, Allan’s sister Beth, who had just moved to New York to take on a professorship at the young Social Technology University. With Beth was her seven year old daughter Helen, excited at the idea of watching her favourite uncle get married.
Already in Algeria for her grand project, though far from Algiers, Future Green came to the wedding.
“When your mother and I got together, Chure, many people thought marriage a thing of the past”, Ken Green told her. “You don’t think that, do you?”
“No Daddy. Many people still become lovers and stay that way without getting married, but we are changing all that. Now it is easy for a person using Beth’s system to find an almost perfectly compatible person to be with. So why not marry?”
“What about you, Chure? I thought you were going to do that yourself.”
“Soon, Daddy. I’m busy right now. Will you come to see me down in the desert before you leave?”
“Yes, please, show me around. How is it going?”
“Thanks to all the automated machinery Ada sent me and all the labour the social tech missionaries have sent up to us, we are now able to put up sections of green house. We’ve got three mile-long strips of it installed already, nine more to go, but we are holding back until the Algerian authorities can evaluate what we’ve done.”
“What is happening to your labour force in the meanwhile?”
“We got permission for a building project at what will be one corner of the square mile complex and probably in the middle of a bigger one someday. Our workers are building what will be a town, big enough to hold all of them and their families.”
“What about the long term, Future. There is where your expertise really lies.”
“You know what I want, Daddy. Some of the Sahara will be kept as parks, but most of it will be covered over. The amount of solar power we will get from the half-transparent solar cells will be enormous. Enough to completely replace fossil fuel usage in the continent. Meanwhile the filtered sunlight will supply a million square miles of greenhouse space, producing enough food to feed the continent, even with massive exports.”
“This will cause climate change, you know.”
“I’ve been studying that, with some of the experts from the university.
They’ve made some models which look good, but we can expand the greenhouse slowly enough to keep an eye on things.”
“I bet you envision a future where the whole world is changed by something like our greenhouses, maybe something entirely different. I am not sure I like this kind of global engineering, Future.”
“Well, it’s like this, Daddy. You have always talked to us about the difference between the social engineering of the Nazis and the social technology which gives individuals tools for changing their own social environments. You have also talked to us about bad social technology which the selfish can use in ways which harm the global social environment. All that is making an analogy with the world’s climate and biological environment, making a social environmentalism. Right? Well, we are turning the metaphor the other way around, back upon itself, comparing what we do to the physical and biological world with social technology. Actually we want to integrate the two, so there is a single environment a person lives in, a total environment, physical, biological and social. I’ve been working on this for a couple of years now.”
“I understand. So you must be looking carefully at the intersection of your project and the social tech missions, in the area south of your complex.”
“Yup.”
As the preparations for Allan and Kadijah’s small wedding proceeded,
Antonia decided she would like something bigger, if and when she got married. When would Abdul ask her? He would, wouldn’t he? Cindy had similar thoughts about Pierre but did not expect any proposal soon. Cindy did want a child, but not right away, and it was the same with Bruce’s Ileana. Perhaps both of their men knew that, and felt less urgency to propose marriage.
Allan Green and Kadijah Barbusse had a Christian ceremony, because the Barbusse family had the religion of her father, without being devout.
Married now, Allan and Kadi resumed the mission. But at night they made love more passionately, and with no birth control. Allan would make Kadi pregnant, he was sure. He had lots of practice. And indeed, just a month later her pregnancy test came back positive. They were very happy. But it meant they would probably leave the mission. Allan told Kadijah that he wanted to return to Vancouver when it was no longer practical to remain with the mission, so that their child could be truly Canadian in all ways. They would probably stay there, Allan starting school at Green U again.
In Africa, the teams on the northern mission passed through Somalia and the Sudan, just passing into Egypt when Kilali had to go to a hospital to have her child. Simon suggested they choose Alexandria, so that is where they went. In Alexandria, Kilali gave birth to a child, a little girl, whom they named Amstella Kilakola Relantes.
The National Geographic journalists recorded this birth in text and pictures, as the conclusion to one of their stories, and then departed, to fond farewells.
It was felt by all concerned that Kilali should stay in Alexandria for a while, while the baby was little. Kilodali would stay with them, all three speaking Kilali’s language and only that language.
Claudette and Ferdinand flew to Abidjan six weeks later, where they also had a girl, Aimee Stephanie Grossere, born August 1st, the exact anniversary of the Social Tech Mission to Africa.
Pierre Herbert had flown in to be with his sister, and brought Cindy with him. Never having been in such a large African city, Cindy was quite amazed by it, determined to make it their ultimate destination.
“By the time our expedition reaches here, Pierre, we will be much larger. We can take on this city. We can do it!”
Sceptical but excited by Cindy’s excitement, his thoughts were only of her, but he promised himself to think over her comment when he could think clearly again. When the crisis was over and they could engage in some pillowtalk, he asked her what she meant.
“I don’t understand what you say about doing a large city, Cherie. Aren’t we missionaries, going around the country, for the poor people, as my parents did for different reasons?”
“It’s more than that, Pierre. We want everyone using the system, everyone using social tech. People in the biggest cities, too. Rural Africa is not going to be typical. I mentioned India, didn’t I? Well, that is more people crowded into a smaller country, with more public education and a larger middle class.
Villages and small towns have television, not just radio, and some motorcycles, not just bicycles. Very different, but the same basic work to do, helping people find good jobs and good matches with other people. It will go so well in crowded India, I can hardly wait!”
News soon reached everyone in both missions that Simon Relantes had performed well for a man of his age and so Kilodali was now pregnant.
“What exactly is a dali, and why should she be a thousand of them”, Paul asked.
“Oh, hello dali, it’s kilo dali”, Amy sang.
In the large Relantes family room, all three adults, or the very adult Simon and his almost adult wives talked Kilali’s native language non-stop at the small child, keeping her from any other language, confident she would soon start to speak it herself. Far away in Abidjan, staying with Ferdinand’s family, Claudette and her husband spoke English, French, and Swahili in front of their daughter.
When Claudette had given birth and the Relantes and Grossere parents had all left the mission, they had been immediately replaced. Two of the newcomers were young old-Africa-hands. The other two were new and unexpected, provoking an astonished response. They were the famed television journalists Nikki Avronti and her husband Nick, there to record the one year anniversary and to join the mission for up to a year.
Nikki and her husband joined the mission in time to tape an interview with all participants to celebrate the one year anniversary of the mission. Amy, Steph and their friends had been on the road one whole year. The girls and their young boyfriends had matured very much in that year, and it showed. They spoke on this televised interview as very grown up, intelligent people.
Nikki Avronti was a longtime member of “the organization”, as some people were calling Ken’s family, which included the mothers of all his children. Nikki was the mother of Nicholas, one of Ken’s sons, and a good boy. She was the mother of one of her husband Nick’s children too. He had another boy, child of his former wife, who had been killed by a grenade somewhere, while serving as an ABC News camerawoman.
All three of these children were lovingly cared for in Sarah’s apartment in New York, but Ken and the other people in his family also had a standing offer to care for the kids in the building in Vancouver when Nick and Nikki were on extended assignment like this. Nikki had been a well beloved participant in Ken’s breeding program and Ken went to great lengths to look after his children and the children of former lovers.
All the Green people in the expedition greeted Nikki with great pleasure, giving her wild hugs and kisses. They greeted her husband respectfully, except for Stephanie who hugged and kissed him too. They had flirted and petted mildly at a Christmas party two years ago when Steph was 14, but it was their secret. Amy grinned. Some secret.
Nikki was 31 years old and was once a dedicated ProCreate magazine staff member, when a 16 year old member of Ken Green’s breeding program. The current ProCreate staffers Bobbi and Antonia Green, just temporarily on leave as system missionaries, were utterly delighted to see Nikki.
All three would spend many long hours talking about the magazine, sometimes riding in the same truck to do so. Bobbi and Toni had been six years old when Nikki worked on the magazine, but not much had changed in those 14 years. The magazine looked the same, was put together roughly the same way, and was still Canada’s leading arts magazine. Nikki avidly read every issue.
With the new additions incorporated, the expedition set off again. And again. And again, until Nick finally got the right aperture, focus and camera angle. Nikki spoke for the camera, then the satellite collected all this and sent it off to New York.
Antonia and Abdul would be with Amy and Roger again soon, but for the moment Nick and Nikki got in a van with Amy, while Antonia moved over to ride with Stephanie, Paul driving.
“Oh, Amy. I used to love you, Amy, when you were a little toddler”, Nikki exclaimed. “You were really the cutest kid I ever saw, and still hold the record in my books. And now, oh, you are so beautiful, you are breathtaking. Can we put you in front of the camera some time?”
“Uh, er, well, I guess. I am not the publicity type, though, how about Steph, instead.”
“No, Amy. You are the one. She is smart, sassy and brassy, but you have depth and beauty. We’ll get you on camera as soon as we can set it up. You will be on ABC Nightly News!”
“Uh, I guess.”
“Don’t worry. Now, where are we going?”
“Well, we will stay in the northeast for a while, handling Egypt, seeing if we can do anything at all for the urban areas, then eventually go along the Mediterranean coast, to the west. I think we might travel fast, with few stops, going towards Algiers then on to Casablanca in Morocco before taking a ship to go somewhere else”.
“Ken has told me very little and what I have seen in the other media doesn’t explain much. What do you actually do?”
“Remember what they did at the building, when Daddy retired?
Supposedly retired.”
“No, not really. I was in New York.”
“Well I was 9, but I remember. Rather than offer the unique services which Daddy had been providing to girls like you and my mommy — I don’t mean just the ones in bed, but the whole package — they put up a number of system computers which would find people what they wanted or needed, as well as possible. To everybody’s surprise they not only worked but were outrageously popular. Daddy then put up a whole building full of them near the university campus and they were more popular than the pub. So Beth put up a building full of them in Cambridge, which also took off.”
“So there were two centres where the system could be used by people without computer and Internet access. Could two centres make much difference?”
“Oh, well, the idea spread when Daddy offered to give away such machines to anyone who would give public access to them. So if you had a little grocery store or something, and were willing to install the computer for free public access, he would give you one. They attracted customers into the store, lots of them, but they were also available for the owner’s use after hours, so lots of stores of various kinds got one. Thousands of them did. Daddy paid for Internet access – actually he owned some Internet suppliers, but it was not free, really. He said a year’s worth cost as much as the computer, but he said it was worth it. Since we drew attention to Africa, more storefront operations have been set up here, too, but travelling from place to place is more effective. They need us here. And as Steph said, get’s better press. Like you, for instance. You’re not likely to spend much time covering storefront operations, are you?”
