“It’s a conspiracy, I tell you.” Nico declared the next morning when the arrival notices of shiploads of potential students began to ding on her watch’s communicator.

“We did not think this through well enough.” Max agreed.

Medusa had carefully vetted the candidates, in her own words, and arranged the walk-through today to give parents an opportunity to reconsider, as well as explore the facility that their kids would be staying and learning at.

But what she had forgotten to factor in was that two parents for every student, plus any other kids they brought along, meant that she had booked thirty thousand people, who were all wealthy enough to have their own private space-faring yachts, to arrive at Terminus on the same day.

If they had no objections, they would be leaving their students here to settle into the dorms and returning home.

Well, most of them, anyhow. The Cruise Ship was completely booked for the first time, with many guests arranging to share space in the larger suites so that they could find a space to stay aboard Terminus instead of in orbit around the planet aboard their yachts.

Traffic control was used to military landing operations, with thousands of Landers operating at once. They were handling the increased traffic well enough, but there was still a long line of vessels waiting to arrive and drop off their passengers.

Max had ordered that a staging system be put in place, where the guests would be dropped, and the staff would return to orbit around the planet, and then pick up the departing visitors on the other side of the ship so that the two lines didn’t interfere with each other.

Every five minutes, one hundred vessels landed in twenty cargo bays, ushering their guests aboard and promptly departing to allow the next group to disembark.

They could have used more bays, but that would make for a long walk for many of the guests, and the bays weren’t all empty since Terminus had such a wide range of items stored all through the ship.

The applicants were given a timeslot, so they didn’t arrive when the line was already too long and cause unnecessary traffic jams. The schedule would take nearly ten hours to get everyone on board, which would keep the traffic numbers through the Academy under control as well, allowing the teachers to serve as tour guides to larger groups and give personal service to the students with questions about the facility.

What had seemed like a huge number of staff only days ago now seemed like it was barely sufficient, with all of their guests wandering around, and Max began to wonder if he should dedicate even more room to the Cruise Ship portion of Terminus.

They could already hold a huge number of guests, but holidays at the Academy would pack their available rooms with guests, even if they weren’t already hosting the usual complement of tourists.

Max gave Nico a long-suffering look, and she smiled back at him.

“I will get on the upgrades to host more guests, as well as a departure plan so that we don’t have a ten-hour lineup of ships again next time.”

“Thanks, Nico. I knew you would understand.”

They were waiting near the docks for the next shift of traffic controllers to come on duty so that they could get feedback from the ones coming off duty about how to improve the efficiency of the process. While Max could search more deeply through a person’s memories if he wanted, that was still somewhat limited, and if they hadn’t thought of something before, it wouldn’t tell him what he needed to know.

Directly asking them and having them think up solutions on his behalf was much more likely to come up with a workable answer.

“Incoming.” Nico laughed and pointed to where a large number of kids were running their way with a teacher chasing them.

None of them could be more than about eight years old, and they were from a half dozen different species, so they were likely in the same class, organized by Traffic Control to land in the same bay so that they could take the tour together and get to know each other.

Nico extended a light forcefield so the kids couldn’t escape the cargo bay and laughed as the kids came to an abrupt halt at the seemingly open door.

“No fair, we almost got out. Can you tell her to let us go for a bit so we can get ice cream? My sister is here on vacation, and she said that the ice cream shop in the forest is amazing.” One of the Valkia kids asked Max, assuming he was the one to have stopped them.

“I can do you one better. If you behave for your teacher and complete the tour without any complaints from her, I will have the good ice cream added to tonight’s menu in the first group student cafeteria. You are all in years one through four, right?” Max asked.

“We’re in year three, and we’re all in the same class. How cool is that? Will there really be ice cream in the cafeteria?” The Valkia asked.

“I personally guarantee it, but only if you behave for the teacher. I am the Commander of the Terminus Trading Company. I can order them to put anything we have on the menu as a special treat.” Max replied proudly.

“It is an honor to meet you, Commander. I am Kita, youngest daughter of Alliance Councillor Karen. I will be in your care for some time, it seems, as she has instructed me to learn as much as I can about human culture. I heard her talking to her friends from work, and they think your species will be a trading partner in only a few years, just like the Hunters.”

“That’s silly. Aren’t they going to be members? I heard on the live stream that a lot of Innu think they will be made members because of all their new technology patents. My dad is on the Taxation Council, and he was complaining about the loss of tax revenues since all of their patents aren’t fully taxable as non-members.” One of the Innu boys asked.

[These kids are a gold mine.] Nico’s thoughts reached Max with a heavy dose of amusement while she tapped his arm and gestured to the parents, who were almost to them now.