Nobody said Rock Hauling would be easy. Throughout settled space, terraforming is the fuel that drives the interstellar economy. For some worlds, this is easy. For others, lacking resources, or on the periphery, this is an unattainable dream. Throug...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Chapter II Tomas I
It's name was 86-Trager, by designation, but as of now, Tylo's greatest project still lacked a name for it's most valuable actor.
Tomas Gallenhorst only stared, as it spun in the darkness of the void, a huge black bulk, rotating so slow he couldn't even perceive it. The ancient Scharpon II that was the Caroline Rowland had matched its orbit and speed, and it no longer appeared to be hurtling around Tyluset at an orbit of five and a half hundred million kilometers, instead, it simply appeared as though it was reclining languidly in the void, an empress of the Lost Homeworld in one of the old reproductions of prehistoric paintings. A sovereign of the dark.
It had taken so long to come out here, but that spinning lump of silicate would change everything.
"Amazing," he whispered to the void.
"Long trip for a big rock," said captain Colemon, behind him. "I still don't really get it."
Tomas stretched out his limbs, reaching against the pull of his mags. In the zero-gravity of the Caroline Rowland's observation deck, he was fixed to the floor by the U-shaped metal strips on the bottom of his boots. His fingers reached up to the ceiling, and stroked a panel above him lovingly. They were finally here. "Yes," he agreed. "It did take a long time. But it's still cheaper than pulling something of any sort of comparable mass straight out of Tylo's gravity well. We're working on a tight budget already here." He tried not to sound petulant. The captain simply couldn't understand how momentous of an occasion this was for a Tyloan. He couldn't have understood how much it had taken Tylo to get this far. To pass the legislation, to drum up enough money out of their nonexistent GDP to hire a ship of the Caroline's size, and even for everyone on both sides of the secretariat to agree on something at all.
If not for Saelus Percival, they might not have gotten underway at all. Thank God for bipartisan politicians.
"Not arguing with you, professor," said the captain. "Just saying...I never spent so long in the void before. Pretty sure this is the furthest I've ever been from anywhere settled. Or gone without real gravity."
