"Thank you, Bernard. Thank you so much," said Adam Lander, accepting a mug of steaming coffee from his younger brother.

"We're going to run out of coffee soon," Bernard said.

"What? Run out of coffee? I saw a whole carton, untouched, when I was checking on the stores yesterday."

"That carton doesn't contain coffee."

"Are we talking about the same thing? The carton I'm referring to has a Maxwell House logo on it."

"It's full of Debbie's herbal teas. The ones even she won't drink, they taste so bad."

"Oh. By the way, is Dad around?"

"No, he's still sleeping."

"Shouldn't we wake him up?"

"He told me he's taking a day away from the office, and that you're taking a day off, too," said Bernard. He seemed far from overjoyed at the prospect of having his father and older brother around for the whole day.

""What about Debbie and Karen?"

"They're up, all right. They've been up since dawn."

"Funny," said Adam. "I haven't seen them."

"They're working on the vegetable garden they've started cultivating a couple of weeks back."

"I haven't seen any vegetable gardens around either," said Adam. "I must be losing my grip."

"It's behind the shed with the llamas. By the way, Karen managed to acquire three more llamas from the zoo in San Francisco."

"I hate those fucking animals. Did you notice they sort of sneer at you when you look at them?"

"Yeah, they've got a kind of a supercilious air about them. But they're really useful in the New World."

"I don't see why we should keep llamas around here once they've been replicated in the New World," Adam said. "I really have to talk to Debbie and Karen about that."

"While you're at it, talk to Debbie about the chickens."

"Chickens?"

"She's gone nuts with chickens. We've got hundreds and hundreds of chickens running around Fort Lander. You can't take a breath without smelling chicken shit."

"That's too bad," said Adam, silently congratulating himself on turning down the leadership of the Lander colony. Naturally, upon accepting Brock's offer of governorship, Kirk had offered the leader's post to Adam. Adam had demurred, and indicated he would be much happier serving under Kirk in the colonial administration.

And so, Bernard had been appointed the leader of the Lander colony. It had provoked an angry speech from Karen, who accused her father of sexism. Kirk had mollified her somewhat by offering her the area around Lake Hennessey for a settlement of her own. It was good land, with plenty of timber and fertile soil, and Karen would have almost total autonomy.

"Of course, you'll still be part of the Lander empire," Kirk had told her. "Who knows, maybe the most important part. And Bernard isn't going to be your boss; he's going to be your partner. All decisions affecting our colony will be democratic. You, Bernard, and Debbie will all have equal say. If you can't come to an agreement, you'll vote."

"What if there's one vote for, one against, and one abstention?" Karen had said. She was well aware of Debbie's reluctance to take sides in a dispute.

"You'll just have to work it out between yourselves," Kirk had told her. "All progress depends on people working out things between themselves."

As it turned out, Bernard was a good leader. He didn't impose his will on anyone, relying on his considerable persuasive skills to turn people round to his point of view. The persuasive skills in question consisted largely of Bernard's ability to remember every single fuckup, every shameful situation in everyone's life. When he encountered opposition, he was quick to recite a list that made his opponent blush.

No one liked to be reminded they could be as crass and stupid as anyone else. Bernard usually got his way. Having secured Adam's cooperation in resolving the chicken shit crisis, he said:

"I have a favor that I'd like to ask you."

"Ask away," Adam said warily.

"You know how important it is for us to have access to the ocean."

"Right."

"That involves having free access to San Pablo Bay."

"Yeah, I know. Dad mentioned you'll be starting a settlement on Knight Island."

"I'd prefer to start it somewhere else. Knight Island is basically one big salty swamp. A lot of the bay coastline is one big salty swamp. It isn't easy to find a good spot for a healthy settlement."

"It might be difficult west of the Napa river, I agree. But surely everything on the eastern bank is okay."

"It is. And it appears to have been settled already."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Well," said Adam. "I can't recall the exact numbers for Vallejo right now, but I'm sure the governor there has been sticking to the limit. Actually, I remember now that he told me he'd issued four colonizer licenses to a single guy with friends, to found a single colony."

"Whatever. I don't know who owns the settlements my scouts spotted. That's the favor I wanted to ask you. Could you find out?"

Adam shrugged, and said:

"Sure, that's no problem at all."

"Could you also find a reason to fire the Vallejo guy, and combine that district with yours?"

"Wow," Adam said. "That's radical. Why do you want me to do that?"

Bernard rolled his eyes, and said nothing.

""I see," Adam said. "You want me to take over the Vallejo district, and secure a spot for one of our settlements?"

"That would be best."

"I'll look into it," Adam promised. "But you understand I have to consult this with Dad. Dad's big on giving everyone equal treatment and so on."

"Shouldn't we wake him up? It's already after nine."

"Let him sleep," Adam said. "He's been getting little sleep for the past few weeks, and he's been tuning out. He hasn't been to the New World for a while. I'm sure he has plenty to do there."

Adam was both right and wrong, as is so often the case. Kirk wasn't asleep. He'd jerked awake a couple of minutes earlier, and was presently sitting up in his bed and staring at the wall with unseeing, haunted eyes. His spooked demeanor was at least partly caused by the fact that he was reviewing all the things he still had to do in the New World.

The first thing he had to do was see Fort Baker's resident doctor. His sudden awakening was caused by his losing consciousness in the New World, after he fell down in the cog's hold. He had stupidly joined the cog's crew in the task of moving the ship's ballast, made necessary by the unloading of all the supplies for Fort Alaya. The ballast consisted of large, heavy stones, and Kirk slipped and fell while carrying one of these. He struck his head on another stone and was instantly knocked out.

Had he gone insane, over there? It was beneath a governor's dignity to lug stones around in a ship's hold! Then Kirk remembered the going-away party held in Fort Alaya prior to the cog's departure.

The ship's cargo included a barrel of the ale brewed for the ship's commissioning ceremony. It was Kirk's intention to present the brave colonists in Fort Alaya with this gift soon after his arrival. But the two days he'd spent in the settlement on Angle Island turned out to be far too busy to allow for party time, and the subsequent hangovers.

It took more than a day of frenzied work to build the raft needed to ferry supplies from the ship. These included construction materials such as massive wooden beams, and getting them ashore required many hours of hard work. Of course, Kirk didn't involve himself in that bullshit. Captain Craw handled everything very admirably.

Instead, Kirk spent his time wandering around Fort Alaya and its immediate neighborhood, making grandiose plans for the settlement's development. He was very interested in the workings of the communal kitchen, and assisted the cooks with many valuable suggestions meant to improve the flavor of the food being prepared. The cooks were so grateful that they contemplated putting shit-stirring herbs and toadstools in Kirk's bowl of stew.

When all the supplies for Fort Alaya had been unloaded, Kirk finally permitted the release of the ale to the working population. He had promised himself repeatedly he wouldn't drink any; the ship was about to sail, and he remembered only too well what had happened the moment it had sailed from Fort Baker. But he'd allowed himself to get caught up in the explosion of joy after the ale barrel had been brought ashore, and opened.

Hadn't he gotten his sea legs on the outward trip? By the time the Albatross had anchored in the Alaya Bay, Kirk could walk around the ship without the need to clutch at things for support. He deftly compensated for the deck's movement with movements of his own, and was quite proud of his newly-acquired seaman's swagger.

And so, he allowed himself a cup of ale. It was very good. He had another. The governor of Alaya made a speech praising himself and Kirk, and naturally that necessitated a third cup. It inspired Kirk to make a speech of his own, in which he stressed the importance of leading by example.

The fourth, fifth, sixth cup were all instances of Kirk leading by example; everyone followed joyously. He'd felt fine. He'd felt strong enough to move mountains! When it was time to move the ballast, he stupidly decided to lead by example yet again.

Brooding heavily, Kirk at last got out of bed and stretched. He was more than ready for his morning coffee. He wouldn't mind something to eat, either. He checked the time: nearly twenty to ten! He grabbed and put on his dressing robe, and hurriedly shuffled to the kitchen.

He'd forgotten about the soldiers guarding his home, and was embarrassed not to have shaved and dressed and combed his hair before venturing out: he ran into a couple of Marines before getting to the safety of the kitchen. Bernard was there. He was seated at the table and writing something in a big notebook, frowning heavily.

"Good morning, Bernard," Kirk said. "Working hard? How about some breakfast? I could make scrambled eggs."

Bernard shuddered.

"No thanks," he said. "No eggs for me, Dad."

"Why not?"

"They, um, have unpleasant associations," Bernard said mysteriously. "But you go ahead. Don't mind me."

"Hmm," said Kirk. "Maybe more coffee? I see your mug is empty."

"We're beginning to run out of coffee, Dad."

Kirk sighed.

It was clearly going to be one of those days.

NOTICE

This work is available to read online exclusively at Webnovel.com.

https:///book/15767933905886705

If you are reading it at a different site, it has been copied and reproduced without the author's consent. The owner of that site is a thief.