#143 : Moving Day

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The time had finally arrived. Everyone was prepared for the move. Shelby had about a Gazillion tons of CrystalSmoke ready to go.

For months, Crystal Mantas had been arriving many times a day, from all points of the compass, laden with crystal smoke. Shelby had been receiving shipments from all of the Carbon Prospectors until they recently ceased operations and all came home. They wanted to be here on the big day.

Shelby had been stockpiling the ‘raw’ material by the ton. There was a long ways to go until completion but there was enough on hand to grow the basic structure. It had taken a LOT of crystal to get this far and it would take much more before completion.

It began.

A huge volume of SSmoke billowed out from the Banana Slug as it preformed it’s last function. All it’s SSmoke components decohered to formed a fog. The fog ‘banked’ over the construction area. Slowly, then with increasing speed the SSmoke formed into a huge spherical cloud. It was hundreds of feet across and formed the protective outer shell of the habitat. Within this shell the smoke became denser and denser.

A dome arched high above the water . The rest was submerged, penetrating all the way to the river bed. The huge, partial sphere would increase in size as the water rose. If the water got deep enough it would float.

Within the cloud, structure began to form.



Eventually the first phase of growth was completed.

“Got ‘er done!” Shelby proclaimed. It was mostly done. All that remained were fiddly bits, more growth, more detail, more resolution, more ballast, and as always more SSmoke. (You can’t EVER have too much SSmoke.) It would be a process that would continue for years. However, it was habitable, NOW! They needed it and it was time to move in.

“Now everyone can come HOME!” Shelby proclaimed louder. Everyone cheered .

They began to do that. It was conceptually simple. Pick a spot and claim it. If you had a kin-ship dock it. Other wise construct something in that slot later. Kamiko Akiyama was ‘Traffic Control’ that day and she had lots of help. She and her minions left little to chance. The barges, for example, under very cautious, individual control, adjusted themselves properly then entered their specially built ‘barge bays’. They proceeded forward slowly and carefully until they ‘bumped the bow’ then they stopped. SSmoke poured in, filled all the spaces between the barge and the walls, to deck level, the decorated the interior tastefully. No one likes to live in a barn? The barge bay looked purty when done and the barge was pretty much “cemented in place”, that barge was home.

The much smaller kin-ships were even easier, much like parking a car in a garage, or a boat in a slip in a marina, . Pull in and it’s done.
It was over in a few hours. If for some reason it turned out that a person didn’t like their first pick ,(rowdy neighbors who had arrived first perhaps?) they could always move somewhere else.

The water-tribe had a new home.

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The Next Episode Is
#144 : Pah-Teeeee…
The Previous Episode Was
#142 : Refugees-The Toy Gorilla…
The First Episode was
# 1 : Prologue…
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Book One: SoulStone
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