Canticle Blue

42. Gilon's Light

In the weeks after the Terreska navigation grid was installed, Gilon spent almost all of her time on the new piloting bridge, exploring the heavens and orchestrating the day-night cycles of the ship. One night, in her stationary travels, she set the ship's collar drives to track stars and discovered an inbound comet. When she could find no record of it in the Deep-Core, she woke Cian to help with the search. They found that it was a previously undiscovered comet, possibly making its first pass into the solar system. It appeared to be relatively small, and fast moving. Because of its speed, Cian even wondered if it could be a single-apparition object, destined to exit the solar system or be thrown into an extremely long-period orbit. At Prince Aedh's suggestion, they named the new comet, "Gilon's Light."

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As essential Terreska improvements neared completion, including pressurization of the entire habitat section, calls to the Bryn Institute became more frequent. One evening, at the beginning of a conversation with Chancellor Meric, Tor Stym said, "We will need to be kept aware of how the colony is doing in order to make long-range plans up here. Are things looking any better?"

He answered, "Well...no. The government is still watching our every move. I hope that doesn't sound too paranoid. They wonder how our people can be disappearing with no trace. They also ask how we were able to evacuate Per'sa Island with limited commercial transportation—they even checked airship manifests—and if we can verify that those people returned to us. Media conspiracy theorists are suspicious about the timing of the volcanic eruption on the island. They apparently imagine the use of high explosives placed within a tectonic fault, or some such thing. And, of course, our local authorities are irritated about our obvious avoidance of their educational directives. Anyway, there is talk of possible lock-downs of the colony, as well as new travel restrictions. I've actually been concerned about the radio I'm using, since law enforcement people have hinted at searches. It's the only piece of exotic-matter technology here. Maybe you could find a conventional replacement that would work for us. In meetings, we've already talked about getting rid of records and data concerning the island, though they contain almost nothing specific about exotic matter. Rather than destroy them, though, we would prefer sending them to you."

Tor asked, "I know this is a radical idea, but do you ever visualize a need to evacuate the whole colony?"

"It might surprise you to know," he answered, "that the colony leaders have at least touched on that idea. The kinds of pressures we're seeing now are unique. We've been aware of the erosion of human rights in this country for decades, especially for religious minorities. The laws, and even the national charter, have come to mean nothing. Our best legal experts can no longer penetrate the bias in the courts. But we would need somewhere to evacuate to, so I assume you have some ideas."

Tor replied, "We do have tentative plans.  The Terreska is fast-becoming a sustainable ship. It's actually in better shape now than when the colonists discovered Havel. The environmental teams say the air quality inside is excellent and that the ship could support as least as many people as it once did. Elyse says we're making great progress with crops in the ship's interior." He laughed. "I'm not sure how much detail you want..."

"No, please continue. It's all great news! I couldn't be prouder of the work you young people are doing."

Tor continued, "We can arrange for you to see the ship at any time. The main drives are nearly finished. The panels are being built one at a time." He laughed. "They're so huge that we don't have room to work on much else at the moment. Thankfully, we have a zero-G assembly area in that section."

The chancellor asked, "Is it true that you will be able to resurface the entire ship?"

"Yes, we're using N-type, embedded with sensors. The stuff is great for hull integrity and shielding. It's also black and shiny, which makes the ship hard to see in space.

"The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is this. We now have a docking bay in the Terreska, with four docking ports, and would like to build two shuttle spacecraft for the Colony. Their design would be like the Castel, but they would be much larger. Their forward drive units would be built into the sphere sections. They could each carry over a hundred people, and more could ride in the sphere sections, if necessary. We could use them for cargo too, of course.

"And we want to build another space habitat."

Once the chancellor caught his breath, he said, "I sometimes forget how daring you folks can be."

"It gets better though," Tor continued, "at least from our point-of-view. We want to mine the comet that Gilon found, mainly for water, but also for building materials. I know it may sound far-fetched at this point, but we might only have one chance at it."

This was followed by a long silence, so Tor tried to throw in some humor. "We can promise to stay within the solar system, even if the comet doesn't. At least for now..."

The chancellor finally replied, "Normally, I'm sure the colony leaders would want a written proposal for something of this magnitude. But, under the circumstances, it could fall into the wrong hands. So maybe I could bring everyone together down here, and we could all hear you out."

The proposal was tentatively accepted, the only stipulation being that the Terreska community should simply proceed along those lines as far as they could, with no unnecessary risk. The Terreska would have to be tested as a restored spacecraft anyway, and any shuttles which could be built would certainly be useful in many areas.

If all went according to plan, the Terreska would rendezvous with Gilon's Light within two years.