New Power

[Nick Ryder]

"Yeah... Tesla more like it." Nick agreed and walked over to the work bench. "Alice and I are going to transfer some of the saved funds we have to one of the schools out in the South continent. Four frickin' years and they still haven't decided on a name for the continent. Anyway... they don't always get enough funding and we've made it something of a quarterly thing to donate to a school or just set one up." he glanced at the computer monitor bank and smiled. "I told Price when we made his Presidency official, that if he does a thing to roll back anything we've done to help spur progress, I'm kicking his ass. And I can. It's written into our constitution. The President Emeritas can beat up a sitting President if he's being a douche."

[Rebecca Talon]

"Boys," Rebecca said disapprovingly. "You know I love you, but sometimes you truly think with the wrong head Nicholas."

[Nick Ryder]

"Actually it was Isabella, Jon and I that came up with that... and I'm kidding. Mostly." Nick said with a wink. "Still, legally I do have some say here, I'm still on the Council as an adviser and I am still a land owner."

[Rebecca Talon]

She eyed him skeptically, "Well, what does that make me? I own land. A substantial amount I might add."

[Natalia Ryder-Singh]

"Well there are seats on the infrastructure board." Natalia said as she tried on one of Nick's holographic glasses. "Your region has like no one sitting on it and Trinity refused because she's already got a lot on her plate and Ethan said something about 'meetings being worse than saddle burn' or something cowboy like that." she gestured with her hand. "Land owners don't HAVE to be on a board or anything but it helps since typically things need to be built and then suddenly they're concerned about their land, when they should have been part of the planning in the first place. New Honolulu had an infrastructure board since before the planet was set up. Granted your specialty isn't quite in that domain and neither is mine, but I would have had to move two of our synthetic dilithium research facilities because of new construction, but instead we managed to re-route and set up a different option. I don't think you'd want a utilities trunk going through your farm because there's a new town being formed down the road."

[Rebecca Talon]

"I'm far enough from Taos for that to be much of a concern. But, I'll talk to Milo tonight. We can probably represent the ranchers. But Reilly City and Taos aren't that close to each other. It would be like saying Cincinnati is around the corner from Cleveland."

[Nick Ryder]

"True but you know how development goes, sooner or later something gets built." Nick reminded her. "Look at how much got built up just since you've been away. We're still getting a lot new residents coming from other colonies. Only community not growing by leaps and bounds are the Xenexians, but they've been trying to rebuild their own planet so they've been basically trying to recall as many of their people from all over as they can. My grandson and his wife are here, going to send them back with a dozen or so pieces of construction equipment. Same ones that built the Compound in less time than a saucer section..."

[Rebecca Talon]

"Nothing wrong with that. There's still plenty coming from Earth too. Especially since the Emperor has relaxed some of the restrictions. That said, I really don't know how much development can be had. The majority of the land is claimed by either ranches or the Terra Alpha Department of the Interior. But, we do have to think of the future. I would hate to see the same fate of our ranches as those of earth."

[Nick Ryder]

"Well we worked into the charter of Terra Alpha that we're going to maintain the land as much as possible, keeping commercial development and manufacturing development to pre-arranged areas. Department of the Interior is charged with keeping the planet as pure as possible as long as possible." Nick said and gestured to a map he brought up. "That's one reason why I spent so much time on this new power source. Cheap, clean, sustainable energy and reduce our reliance on things like deuterium and dilithium mining. " he finished his bottle of beer and dropped it in a can.

[Rebecca Talon]

"I was thinking of them being broken up and sold, but that too," Rebecca said with the raising of one shoulder. "I think larger families are going to be quite common for now. What happens to the younger siblings?"