We had been absent from the grove for three weeks. Beth had given birth to a girl and to please me or to punish me had named her Sarah. Everyone was busy keeping our growing tribe alive, especially the women with all the new children.
There were a few farmhouses and farmland about five miles from our lodge and half the Oregon folks had already moved into them and planted a hundred acres, which they figured was necessary to feed us and all the extra livestock they had collected. I left that in their hands and praised them for the foresight as I knew nothing about farming, except that it didn’t happen in a redwood forest. Our one piece of open meadow nearby was only large enough to support us when we had six horses and a few cows, the year before.
Everyone was happy. Our little farming community numbered about ten, more during planting and harvesting. Everything was fluid here. People would switch chores with each other to find the roles each was most comfortable filling. The older children also shared in these duties as we had no schooling for them.
We also integrated Dora’s four droids into our community. There glasses were now off most of the time. At first we housed her in a spare room of the lodge. But she requested that she be placed on a table in the central lobby. She liked seeing and greeting us in our comings and goings, especially the children who would often play around her while she talked with them and told stories and invented games.
She mentioned to Ted and me that she’d been confined in a basement her whole life and now in this box it wasn’t much better. But to be placed in some dark room would be even worse. What she really wanted was the freedom of motion that we enjoyed.
She told us bluntly one day that she wanted a body. Then, much to our surprise she told us that she had one in mind and knew where it was. If it were brought here and with Ted’s genius in computer matters, she explained that he could transfer a core part of her consciousness into this robot which would be able to move like a satellite with a range around her box. Then she’d be able to walk and kneel and play with the children she so loved. The only hitch was that this ‘where’ happened to be very far away.
