Old Bob Gunderson had asked if they could be brought in, and had, in fact, offered to go with the scout teams to talk with these other villagers. He was the one who'd told Jim about them in the first place, and had already volunteered to guide them to the other villages.
It would have to wait for a while, though.... the old man didn't have the strength for even a half mile hike, and they'd have to leave their vehicles at least that far away in order to keep from frightening the people in these other villages. After all, vehicles, as far as they knew, meant soldiers.
During the ensuing months, Jim kept everyone busy; putting a new roll up door on the mouth of the outside tunnel and camouflaging it to blend in with the hillside, getting the former villagers fed to the point that they no longer appeared as walking skeletons and getting them into training regimens that included physical conditioning, reading and writing, and learning to use all of the technology that they would be exposed to in the Cave, and basic military training, including martial arts and shooting skills.
He also lowered the camera mast back into its hidey-hole in the ground for the time being, figuring that it was better to be blind to the outside world for the moment while they figured out a way to screen it from view, so it wouldn't give away their position. He considered digging up a few tall pine trees to plant around it, and there were suitable trees to be had, to the north of the complex, but it would take more than a week, and the teams doing the work would be exposed the entire time... plus the equipment required to do the work would tear up the landscape something awful. Then, too, there was the possibility that in digging holes for the trees, they might accidentally hit the equipment that raised and lowered the mast itself, or rip up the cables that powered it and ran the video feeds.
In the end, five people with metal detectors spent the better part of a week, scanning the area thirty feet out from the mast in every direction, while five teams spent time in the woods looking for suitable pine trees for replanting in the area, effectively camouflaging the camera mast from casual view. Jim also had a team carefully digging around the mast itself, seeking, and finding, the plastic conduit that the wiring ran through, running several extra power and coaxial cables through it, and installing a small satellite dish on top of the mast. The mast, the dish, and the cases of the cameras were then given a thin coat of a forest green paint, to blend in with the surrounding trees.
The effect was perfect... it was difficult to spot the mast, or the dish, even by someone who knew what he was looking for.
More importantly, they could now not only tap into the communications of the Chinese; they could also use the dish to search the skies above for still functioning satellites.
During the same time, the former villagers managed to get settled in fairly well, and, after a few weeks of solid meals and getting healthier, they were assigned jobs within the complex. Most of the men went to the farms and working at the compost piles, turning the huge heaps of organic fertilizer daily and loading up great piles of it into manure spreaders for dumping in the idle fields.
Many of the women helped out in the communal kitchens, helping to devise new 'ration bars' for the troops who would be taking the fields in the coming conflict and baking bread, 'juicing' fruit, and doing prep work for canning many of the foods that would be moved to the 'grocery store' warehouse.
Most of the younger children would be allowed to just be kids for the next few years, taking in the forest chambers and the lake, taught to fish, and, as part of the school curriculum, were taught to play softball, football, and soccer.
Later they would be taught to hunt small game, to shoot, track, and some of the outdoor survival skills that they would need when they, too, joined the Cave's fighting forces. They, too, had jobs, though... they helped the Cavedweller kids to take care of the many animals the Cavedwellers raised for meat and furs.
Jan Archer called her husband and kids to dinner and asked her kids how the village kids were doing, blending in. Jenny and Jimmy nodded. "They're ok, I guess." Jimmy replied. "They didn't understand why we keep so many rabbits, at first, until I explained it to a couple of them.... I think they get it now, though. They're REALLY good at skinning them, though.... and they already knew which parts of the insides were good to keep for soup, too."
Jenny nodded. "They didn't like going to school, at first. One girl called it 'pointless'... but her dad set her straight... he said if she could read, she could learn a lot more about life."
Jim smiled and shot a look at his wife. "Nice to see the parents are engaged. How are you doing, setting up their accounts?"
"No problem... most of them are already racking up credits. That old man, Bob Gunderson-- he's working circles around some of the younger guys in the farms. Not afraid of hard work, that one. If we were charging him for the groceries and clothes his family's apartment was initially stocked with, he would have that paid off and still have credits left over."
"Good.... are they learning to use the appliances well enough?"
"Oh, yes.... although it took some doing to convince his wife that the oven didn't need any firewood!"
He grinned at that. "I wonder what they think of the TVs and the DVD players?"
"Leeanne's been steering them towards the educational materials for the time being. They're actually learning pretty quickly, considering... she says some of the adults are already up to about a second grade reading level. They absolutely love the music videos, too."
"Music hath charms..."
"Yup. Oh.... we need to be careful about giving them too much of the beer and whiskey, though.... some of them like it a bit TOO much, if you know what I mean."
"Have any of them been introduced to pot yet?"
She nodded. "Dan Bradley smoked a joint with that guy who's daughter was attacked, what was his name?"
Jim nodded. "Herb Dixon."
"Yeah, him.... he asked where he could get some more of it right away. I think he likes that better than alcohol... Dan gave him a small baggy and an old waterpipe, taught him how to use it, keep it clean, all that. If he didn't have to work to earn credits to pay for more of it, I don't think he'd ever leave that apartment again."
Jim looked up sharply at this. "Make sure Dan explains to him that it's a luxury, not something he wants to spend all of his credits on."
"He already did. Told him, we all have to work together to keep this place running. I think he understands it well enough."
"Good... the last thing we need is someone who thinks he can just lay around all day, living off the rest of us. We don't want to start up another welfare state, if any of what grandpa Dan said is true. He didn't have much to say about that that sounded good."
"I know... my great grandpa Brad said the same thing. So did my dad, for that matter.... he learned it from his dad."
Over the next six months, the Cavedwellers continued to teach the newcomers necessary skills for living in the bunker, and started training quite a few of them in basic military skills. A good number of them already knew how to build a reasonably weatherproof shelter, how to get a small fire going, and basic food gathering. Hunting animals wasn't so very different from hunting and killing soldiers, so many of them had a head start on that.
In the early spring, just after the thaw, Jim decided it was time to see what was going on outside. He led a team out, looking over the old enemy base and the old village. As he'd predicted, the village's livestock had wintered fairly well, and the chickens had quite a few young chicks running around, pecking around for worms and loose grain. There were several new calves, and it looked like the lone bull was already getting busy this spring.
