Carthage - A Space Opera Colonization Adventure (Aeon 14: Building New Canaan)
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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 what 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.
“On the other hand, while creating marine ecosystems on Carthage will be hard, it isn’t exceptionally challenging. The main difficulty is that I’d been expecting to seed much colder oceans on New Eden, so I’ve had to switch up organisms a fair bit, but it isn’t too much of a problem. And the warmer temperatures make for more comfortable swimming, especially in the Med.”
“I had no idea ecology was so complicated,” Erin said. “I think I’ll stick with engineering.”
“Engineering is cool, too—hey, we’re nearly there.” He turned off the boat’s engine. “And it’s stopped raining. Help me take down the cover.”
They snapped open the fasteners on the gunwales, and piled the wet material in the center of the boat. Erin had been facing backward. When she turned around, she was surprised to see that Martin had brought them close to the gas plumes venting Carthage’s inner heat. She’d never been so near the towering columns rising from the ocean. Canaan Prime was lowering into the watery horizon, and the plumes shimmered in golden rays.
“You know,” she said, “I’ve seen some sights, but that has to be one of the most beautiful things ever.”
Martin was craning his neck, looking up to the far distant, fine vapor of the gas dispersing into darkening sky. He nodded thoughtfully. “That isn’t all I brought you to see.”
“You mean there’s more?”
“It’s something I spotted the other day. We have to turn south.” He started the engine again and steered the boat in a quarter circle.
Erin watched the water ahead, wondering what the secretive scientist had in store. She couldn’t imagine what else could be out there. They headed toward a spot where the gas hovered close to the ocean’s surface.
She wondered if something was wrong with one of the towers…. The a-grav columns were supposed to lift the gas clear of the thermosphere. Venting heat from the planet’s core wasn’t that useful if you vented it all into the air and not space.
“We can’t go in very close,” Martin said. “It isn’t safe. The water is scalding. But I’ll take us near enough for a look.”
Erin still couldn’t guess what he was referring to. Then, as Canaan Prime began to disappear behind the mountains behind them, she saw a brilliant oran
ge glow at the surface within the clouds of gas, and finally she thought she knew what Martin had brought her to see. “Is that lava?”
“That’s right. Wait a minute and we’ll get a better view.” He eased the boat forward slowly.
A gust of wind parted the curtain of vapor. Erin gasped. A dark mass of solidified lava stood proud above the waves. “Is that an island?”
“I don’t think the cartographers know about it yet,” Martin replied. “I can’t find it on any map. The volcanic activity is creating a new landmass. If it sticks around, life forms will eventually colonize it, and Carthage will have another island. That’s how life is. The FGT haven’t handed us a blank plas sheet to write on. Planets with life are dynamic organisms, constantly evolving and changing. We only help them along their way, guide them toward doing what we want.”
Erin could only stare in wonder as the luminous yellow-orange lava slowly seethed and swirled, hissing on contact with the sea water, and cooling to black, porous rock.
Her gaze slid to Martin, his toned and tanned physique half-obscured by the haze surrounding them, like a sea-god from ancient tales, more at home on the water than land.
When he’s not being insufferable, the man is rather pleasant to be around…and to watch….
Then Walter broke into her silent contemplation.
VILLAIN
STELLAR DATE: 11.29.8935 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: SATC site, eastern shores of Knossos Island
REGION: Carthage, 3rd Planet in the New Canaan System
When Erin arrived at the promontory in Martin’s boat, night had already fallen. She grabbed the a-grav pack she’d left at the base of the cliffs and rose up to the top of the bluff.
The site was entirely dark, save for a few lights shining from the buildings on top of the cliffs. Erin sped past them and quickly returned to the offices. When she went in, she found Sasha and Cullen alone. The bony-featured security team leader’s expression was grave. Sasha looked a little scared.