With so many of their fellow volunteers appearing to be so young, it was kind of a relief to Ray that Jemma was looking at everything from such a clinical standpoint. It made him more comfortable to think of it that way, so having someone else on the same page was ideal. He grinned. "Yeah? So maybe I was thinking in the right direction then; nine months is a long time to work on making ourselves more comfortable, right? That's plenty of time. So yeah, maybe once the basics are all set, then we should start choosing partners and...get to work, so to speak," he said.
It was good to know that he wasn't the only one trying to logically and clinically think things through before committing. They were going to have to raise these children, after all, and there ought to be some thought being put into the process of that. If people were choosing their partners solely based on their looks or personalities, things were bound to go downhill quickly. Ray was interested in finding someone both attractive and intelligent; someone he thought he would work well with when it came time to raise the child, and someone that he thought would be a good, nurturing mother. So, to learn those things, Ray needed time.
He looked back at Jemma. "Those are good points," he agreed. "I would think that we should start before we hit a one year anniversary in this place. And that's being highly generous. I can't imagine that we can't establish some basic, sturdy and safe community within a couple of months, or maybe less. I think it's foolish to wait too long, although maybe that's why there are so many young women and men mixed in with us. They'll have more time for it than the rest of us will." He paused. "I think that we should probably keep track of who is breeding with whom so that we don't end up spreading the gene pool too thin and making avoiding inbreeding in the next generation or two completely impossible."