Building New Canaan - The Complete Series - A Colonization and Exploration Space Adventure
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Long loungers dotted the viewing room. A few were already occupied. The place was entirely dark, to enhance the effect of the spectacle above, and the passengers present were speaking in hushed voices to avoid intruding on others’ peaceful enjoyment. Isa and Usef lay down on a pair of loungers.
After settling onto the soft cushions, Isa said, “You know, Usef, this trip is already turning out to be everything I hoped.”
“It’s hardly started yet,” he told her. “Just wait until you get to Athens. I can show you around there, too, if you want. It might be a good idea to hang out with someone experienced. Though everything’s pretty safe, the planet likes to deliver a surprise once in a while.”
“Thanks. I’ll take you up on that.”
SAILING
STELLAR DATE: 11.29.8935 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Eastern shores of Knossos Island
REGION: Carthage, 3rd Planet in the New Canaan System
Martin’s boat bobbed on the gentle swell of the deeper water on the northern side of the promontory. He was too distracted to work. He wasn’t, however, too distracted to watch the construction workers as they finished putting up the fence around the development site.
No one was doing anything at the hole in the cliff face, but he was certain that would soon change. He wondered how they planned to excavate and then build a facility inside the rock without causing any sort of vibrations. If they didn’t use explosives, beams, or an MDC, they would have to drill. He couldn’t figure it out.
Eamon said, politely ignoring Martin’s petulance.
Martin scanned the activity at the promontory as he decided his answer.
Chewing over his AI’s words, Martin was forced to conclude he had a point.
Eamon went on,
He couldn’t deny the logic of Eamon’s reasoning. He began to regret his displays of anger toward the engineer.
What did she say her name was? Erin.
Maybe he’d been a little too focused on his work and his aims. It wasn’t like he owned the promontory. It was just that he’d gotten used to having the place to himself, and the arrival of newcomers had made him wary. Most people didn’t really understand how vulnerable marine organisms were in their juvenile stages. That was why his and other seeding sites were established far away from recreational areas.
If Erin was true to her word, the effects of the construction would be minimal. There was no reason the two projects couldn’t function side by side.
I suppose she’s right. Ultimately, we both have the same aims.
He started up the boat’s motor.
The boat lifted and fell more strongly on the deeper waves as Martin drew closer to the shore, his passage aided by the current. A reef shark hatchery lay close to the shoreline, and he steered the boat around it.
As he neared the beach, he said tentatively,
Martin turned the boat in a circle that took him a short distance out to sea while he waited. The tide was coming in and he was being borne toward the beach. By the time he returned to his previous spot, he could see the form of the engineer at the top of the cliff. She waved at him.
He waved back.
Out of nowhere, another idea to cement the new friendly relations between him and the engineer popped into Martin’s mind.
PICO
STELLAR DATE: 11.29.8935 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: SATC site, eastern shores of Knossos Island
REGION: Carthage, 3rd Planet in the New Canaan System
The first stage of the picotech process was also the simplest: the picoscopic machines would disintegrate the rock in the exact pattern laid out in the blueprint. Yet the prospect of activating the picotech was making Erin nervous. She’d witnessed it in action and seen its devastating effects.
In spite of Earnest’s words of assurance—and Erin’s subsequent reassurance to Sasha—she found herself imagining wha
t might happen if the process went wrong.
Even though its worst-case scenario only affected a cubic kilometer of the island, that measurement encompassed the area they were all occupying.
It could break down all the rock and the building she was standing in, not to mention herself and Sasha and all the other workers on the project.
And if Earnest’s failsafes were ineffective, that wouldn’t be the end. The picotech would continue chewing through all matter it encountered, moving down through the island, into the core of Carthage, and expanding out to sea. It would break apart the very atoms of the atmosphere, until at last, the planet would be nothing more than another example of a failed picotech experiment.
She gave a shiver.
“Are you cold?” Sasha asked.
“No, I’m fine. Are we all set? Is everyone off-site?”
“I’ll just go check to be sure.”
“Thanks.”
Sasha went out and Erin sat down as she waited for her to return. While she waited, she recalled the invitation from Martin. It had been the last thing she’d been expecting him to say. What she’d been anticipating was yet another complaint—not the offer to go see his fish hatcheries, or whatever it was he had in mind. She was thankful for his change in attitude. It was one less thing to take into account during the complex, secretive operation of creating the SATC.
Sasha came back. “The site’s clear. All the construction workers are inside their building, no one’s on the bluff. Are we going out to watch?”
Erin hadn’t thought about it. She could activate the picotech from where she was sitting in her newly constructed office, but Sasha’s suggestion appealed. Seeing the picotech in action would be a rare opportunity—not to mention that it was really no safer in the office than outside of it.
“Yeah. Let’s do it.”
The two women strapped on their a-grav packs and drifted above the valley to the bluff, settling down next to the heavy covering that the construction workers had erected around what would soon be the entrance to the SATC. Lights had been strung inside the roofed screen, and they cast their bright beams on the cliff face. The rock bore the scar of the earlier detonations; they’d penetrated several dozen meters before Martin Ryland’s complaint had made Erin call a halt, and the end of the hole was visible from outside. This dead end, Erin anticipated, would soon be empty space after the picotech had done its work.
“I wonder,” Sasha mused. “Should we be wearing some kind of protective gear?”
“There’s not a lot of point,” Erin replied. “If the pico doesn’t do as it was told, there’s no protective gear in the galaxy that’ll keep it out.”
“You’re not exactly making me feel any safer.”
Before them sat the module that had been delivered a few hours earlier, escorted from the Landfall spaceport by a detachment of Cullen’s team. They’d not known what it was they were guarding, but Erin wondered if they suspected.
The picotech deployment module looked entirely unassuming. A small cylinder, not much larger than an oxygen tank, sat atop a one-meter-square, boxy device. She knew the device was little more than an ES field emitter and the physical deployment mechanism for the pico that would push it across the open space to its target.
Erin glanced at Sasha and smiled. “Do you want to do the honors?”
“Can I?” Sasha grinned. “I’d love to.”
“Go ahead.”
The engineer counted down, then activated the delivery system.
Almost before Erin could blink, the jagged edges of rock left from the blasting were smoothed to straight lines. The blank end of the hole had disappeared and been replaced by dark emptiness. A bare, unadorned, rectangular hole gaped in the cliff face.
“Amazing,” Sasha breathed. “It’s still going, right? It’ll continue into the rock? I mean…I know it will, it’s just something to behold.”
Erin realized she was holding her breath. She exhaled and nodded. “I know what you mean…around another half-minute, and the shell of the SATC will be complete. I’m amazed at how little dust there is. I know it’s drilling holes and packing in the dissolved matter, but I expected to see particulate matter.”
The picotech gave no outward sign of its progress through the rock. Not a murmur of sound nor a ray of light emanated from the hole in the cliff face.
“This is just nuts, I can’t believe we were going to blast this thing out…I’m lucky you brought me in on this project, incessant worry about evil agents trying to steal the tech aside.”
Both women laughed at Sasha’s words as they waited for the deployment counter to tick down. That was the part that had them the most nervous—that the pico wouldn’t stop.
Erin knew that to be ridiculous. Though it was truly amazing, the picobots were machines; they had no will, they did as they were programmed.
The timer hit zero, and the deployment system reported that the programmed excavation was complete, and all the picobots had signalled termination.
Even though they had the acknowledgement, neither woman spoke at first, until Erin laughed.
“I think that’s it,” she said, her tone mocking her prior nerves. “You know, it’s so nice to use that stuff for a good purpose—that’s what its original purpose was, you know. I only wish others didn’t want it as a weapon.”
She released a passel of nano—considering that it too was once considered as dangerous as pico—directing the probes to examine the work, ensuring it had been performed properly. While the nanocloud filtered through the newly excavated facility, there wasn’t anything left for them to do except prepare for the next stage. Erin lifted up the covering and gestured to Sasha to come outside with her.
After the sense-defying process they had just witnessed, it seemed odd that the bluff was exactly as it had been when they’d gone inside the screen: deserted and windy.
“We’ll finalize the steps on stage two before wrapping up,” Erin said, strapping on her a-grav pack to return to the offices to the west.
They completed the work in record time, but once they’d reviewed the pico’s progress and planned out the next day’s second-stage excavation, it was late afternoon. Erin decided that it would be best to proceed in the morning when they were fresh, and dismissed Sasha for the day.
After checking with Cullen that the site was secure, she Linked with Martin. Cementing the new accord with the scientist would be a sensible move, and she found herself curious about what he was doing at the promontory.
Erin retrieved the swimsuit she’d had delivered just in case she had time for a dip, and went outside. Clouds were rising in the west, obscuring Canaan Prime as it eased toward the mountains. By the time she arrived at Martin’s workroom, it had started to spit. The waves had turned grey and were churning against the sand.
“Looks like swimming might not be so pleasant,” Martin said when he saw the change in the weather. “But I have a better idea. Wait a minute.” He went around the rear of the building and returned carrying a transparent, waterproof sheet. “It’s a cover for the boat,” he explained.
Erin accompanied him to the small dinghy, which he’d pulled up above the high tide mark on the sand. Together, they fixed the covering to it, raising a pole in the center to hold it up.
“This should be fun,” said Erin. “I haven’t been out on water for…I don’t know how long. Over a decade, at least.”
“You’ll enjoy it even more when we arrive where I plan on taking you.”
“Which is?”
“You’ll see.” He snapped the final fastener in place on the cover. “Let’s push her out.”
Erin went to the other side of the
boat, and together they pushed the skiff down the damp sand and into the water. The rain began to come down steadily; Erin was getting soaked. Walking thigh-deep into the ocean didn’t help. Martin told her to climb inside and he pulled the boat a little deeper before he joined her under the cover and started the engine.
“There’s a towel over there,” he said.
Erin dried herself off as best she could, though her wet clothes still clung to her. It didn’t matter, the rain wouldn’t last long, and the warm evening air would dry her off. Martin angled the engine, and they headed out to sea, the rain coursing down the cover, obscuring the seascape.
“You really aren’t going to tell me where we’re going?” Erin asked.
“It doesn’t look like it, does it?”
She laughed. “I prefer you with a sense of humor.”
“And clothed, right?”
“I have to confess, I was a little worried when you suggested going for a swim.”
“I thought you said you were used to skinny dipping with your brothers?”
“I was, but you’re not my brother!”
After some more friendly banter, Erin asked Martin to tell her more about his work. Just ten minutes’ explanation had her head spinning at the size and complexity of his task.
“And you’re only responsible for the Mediterranean?” she asked. “There are more of you seeding the other oceans?”
“There’s more than just me working the Mediterranean. I have colleagues on Hyperborea, Iberia, Hellas, Asia, plus a few islands here and there. It’s not only the oceans, either,” Martin replied. “Ecologists are seeding the landmasses, too. They’re a little trickier, in fact, due to the variance in topography. On land, there are rainforests, plains, mountainous areas, and so on. Each habitat mandates a different group of organisms. Sometimes it can be a very fine balance to strike.