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Chapter Four- Incomers

  The first spaceship arrived in the middle of Hubby’s burial.

  The crew—or Settlers, as they called themselves—had worked their socks off building, creating, even laying off sex for a while to build a town, and Arthur of the North knew a day of celebration was needed: a day for Hubby, the forefather of Planet Hy Man.? Not that many agreed with the whole forefather bit; Hubby was mainly remembered for sneaking into the women’s kitchen. Wife-ie was known as the true forefather, but who would argue when the first batch of homebrew was ready, and Hubby was a far more likeable character than crabby-faced Wife-ie?

  The spaceship landed on a pad, using coordinates sent by Wife-ie—a ploy to let them know who’s boss. And as the new ship opened its doors and stared onto a funeral befitting royalty, the ploy worked.? The Incomers had heard of a sewage system of superior quality, but they had no idea that there would be so much more: flowers, banquet tables, costumes, and buildings that required stairs, porches, gardens, and hens obediently caged, silenced by the drumming echoing through the main street (albeit the only street).

  The Incomers realized they were too late—control was taken, a leader established—and the only thing they could do was grovel for decent positions.? The lucky Incomers were assigned to the building of the library. The unlucky Incomers ploughed roads and constructed engines, while the female Incomers were sent to the nurturing stables to live with the other women, along with the hens, which, once the drumming stopped, were as noisy as the engine room of a spaceship.

  It was the women who first named them Incomers.

  They sent the women Incomers to do their dirty work, cleaning the hens while they “nurtured” the garden—cultivating the hemp.?Wife-ie, who considered herself above most women, took up residence in the library building hut. Calling herself head supervisor (“head annoyer,” as the men called it), she facilitated the erecting of the library and, more importantly, the censoring of reading material and ever-growing treaties. ?In fact, there was so much to censoring that she needed a helper or two.? Causing more than a stir, she chose two Incomer women, which, as she explained to Arthur of the North, “stopped those Settler women from getting too big for their boots.”

  By the time the third and last spaceship had arrived, the Incomers had certain jobs and areas to live “with a bit of a view,” and the second ship’s crew, known as the Foreigners, had been allocated the original huts to live in, which had moved to a site with no view.?The huts, which despite being of an inferior “thrown together” quality, were classed as a “conservation area.” Which basically meant all adjustments, “add-ons,” or inner reconstruction were forbidden.

  The Foreigners were led there the day they arrived.?They looked about the damp space with a “so much for a warm welcome” look and said little.?“It’s an honor to reside in such a historical landscape,” muttered one Incomer, shamefaced.

  “An honor?” muttered a small voice from the back.

  “Why, yes,” said the other Incomers. “This is the first settlement, where it all started.”

  “What, here?” muttered another.

  “Well, not exactly here, but near here,” said the shamefaced Incomer.

  “We’ve come a long way since then,” said the other Incomer.

  “So it would seem,” muttered the captain of the Foreigners’ ship, dumping his overnight bag on the ground.

  “Enjoy,” muttered the shamefaced Incomer as the other Incomer handed the captain a “report for duty” memo.

  With another “so much for a warm welcome” look, the Foreigners peered at the memo, a few swearing under their breath, apart from a loudmouth.

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  “Enjoy?” he shouted to the backs of the Incomers. “Are you having a laugh?”

  The Incomers disappeared into the sunset without a backward glance.

  “Landscape?” shouted the loudmouth. “This is as much a landscape as my penis is a vagina.”

  A few pulled faces.

  “It’s probably best to keep quiet,” muttered the captain. “Keep the genitals to a minimum.”

  “There’s bugger-all grass, the sun’s blocked by that giant penis of a sewage system over there—”

  “Let’s just get a feel for things before we insult the locals,” muttered the captain.

  “—and as for the huts, one fart and they’d collapse. We’d be better off living in a pickling wheelbarrow.”

  “Farting will be the least of your worries if you don’t shut up,” said a voice from the back.

  For weeks, Loud Mouth moaned, until one day, as the Foreigners lined up for work, a mission was issued—a mission so lousy, so diabolical, that no one volunteered. Instead, when someone was asked to step forward, they all stepped back as the captain pushed Loud Mouth forward.

  The Foreigners worked in the production lines—the crappiest of the jobs on the planet—where they took orders from the Incomers. Their job was to make uniform building blocks, pipes, screws, and tools for the Incomers’ roadworks and engines. It was so boring that many did it with their eyes closed, until a batch of blocks were made upside down, causing a major tilting of the library.

  Loud Mouth was sent to “retrieve and replace”—an impossible mission that involved dealing with Wife-ie and a fair amount of shouting.? Loud Mouth, however, saw an opportunity.

  “What you need is statues,” he said Wife-ie. “To hold things steady.”

  She looked at the swarthy man, dark from production line work.

  “The deadline for the opening of the library is getting near,” she muttered. “Would a statue speed things up?”

  “Definitely,” Loud Mouth said, producing a mock-up statue of Hubby from beneath his shirt. “Art,” he said, “is the very cornerstone of civilization.”

  Wife-ie stared at his artistic interpretation of the man she had loved and dominated. ?“Oh,” she said, running her fingers over mushed hemp.

  “If you like it,” said Loud Mouth, “I can construct a life-size one and place it here, to resolve the tilt. Your opening would be on time, and you could have this by the entrance—for all perpetuity.”

  Wife-ie was speechless. Loud Mouth wasn’t loud at all; he spoke in a whisper, and with such big words.?“After a sewage plant comes many things,” he whispered near her ear, “but finally art.”

  Wife-ie, suppressing all feelings of admiration, nodded.? “It needs to be more than life-size,” she muttered. “It needs to dominate the skyline.”

  Loud Mouth’s statue did more than that. It was huge, majestic, magical, alluding to huge things beneath his cloak and a nose large enough to picnic on.? Many stopped and stared; it was the first of its kind, its large silhouette catching the sun from dawn to dust.

  “It’s like his nose follows you,” muttered many.

  Loud Mouth was commissioned to create a second statue.

  “I want one of my son,” said Wife-ie, “dominating the main street, overseeing all.”

  Arthur of the Norths’ statue was erected at the high point of the main street and so impressive that birds flew by without a dropping, rats took the long way around, and women laid flowers at the statue’s feet. ?Arthur of the North, moved to almost tears, made Loud Mouth the first-ever statue coordinator.

  “I’m just one of many,” said Loud Mouth. “All us Foreigners have the creative gene.”

  Arthur of the North smiled to himself; that “gene” theory was as believable as fertility without men.

  “We could help you create the city of your dreams,” said Loud Mouth, who had moved on to a speech on art being the “cornerstone of civilization.”

  Arthur of the North smiled again. Loud Mouth reminded him of him, and despite protests from his advisers, he bequeathed the Foreigners an arts corner near a hillside with such a view that even Wife-ie was miffed.

  “The galaxies love a trier,” he said.

  “Aye, but not the Settlers or the Incomers—they’ll go mental,” said an adviser.

  Arthur, dismissing him with a wave, talked of how “Loud Mouth made his mother happy,” which silenced all. Once Arthur of the North talked of his mother, there was no moving him.

  The Settlers and Incomers did “go mental,” sparking the “Great Hemp Riot.” Hemp was stolen, huts were burnt, and accusations flew, until Arthur of the North stepped in with a “freedom for the male artist” treaty, which was as much good as a hemp roof.? The treaty was shoved onto a burning hut, and punches were threatened and about to be thrown when the third and last ship, with a loud crunching of gears, docked on the pad with a crew full of hope.?The spaceship crew’s hopes were soon dashed as they were greeted with a raging mob of Settlers and Incomers now looking for anything to punch.

  “Aliens,” they shouted. “Let’s get ’em!”

  The Foreigners, with memories of their own arrival still fresh, almost pitied the Aliens and then decided to seize the opportunity.? As the Settlers and the Incomers chased both the men and women Aliens to the outlands, the Foreigners moved the three redundant spaceships to their arts corner and recycled, reinvented, and up-cycled to their hearts’ content, creating furniture so amazingly comfortable that no one would ever argue about the arts corner for quite some time.

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