Chapter 6: Building

~~ Delta - Oct/02 - (Earth - April/2095) ~~

The wizards had a busy week building three new compounds.

Gary, Gavin and Jim were busy churning out domes. They had already completed the domes in the UN Compound, and the crews had fitted them out ready for Robert, Pete, Antonio, Kostya and their families and support people to move into.

The UN delegates were busy moving in to get ready for the first two ships from the Australasian and the North American blocks. The personnel from the Delta Space Police Force were also shifted to free up space for the visitors.

Lee’s ships were doing a roaring trade in shipping people from Utopia to Harmony. These people were paying passengers or accepting job positions. Nick turned the old Army unit block into the Eze Hotel as it was close to the domes. They removed the fences, remodelled, added new features and even more rooms.

The East and Northern European blocks were due in about six weeks, as they had recently left Earth space. The science crews were going to bunk in at the Hotel until they worked out where they would set up in their new territory.

Both their ships could land once they decided, where they wished to set up a primary point of settlement. It was proposed back on Earth that the vessel and a dome would become their living quarters, while they surveyed the rest of their new property.

The dads had gotten them to agree on a neutral base like Clarksville, and then they could split the areas up after the surveys were in. They already had a rudimentary agreement from what Lee had supplied, but the borders could be renegotiated.

The Dads had taken back Lee’s latest survey scans, and so far, the parties were sticking to their decisions. They had heard the other two blocks were as well. Rodger told Sean that China had put the screws on the dissenters to either agree or opt-out. They had finally come to the table and have now signed. The South American block was still dithering but very close to signing.

Things were not looking good in the Middle East, as more recent fighting had escalated. The argument about ‘Where was Mecca on Harmony,’ had escalated as had other local issues as well. Half of India didn’t care about their neighbour’s squabbles and had petitioned Lee to let them come anyway.

Africa was having similar problems with some of its countries not being able to put aside old grievances as well. Only about half of the countries in their block had signed, and they were the ones dominated by women. The epidemic had seriously screwed with the culture in Africa, and they were still finding a new direction.

The Australasia block did settle on Anzac as the name of their new country. The North European block settled on Slavia, and the Western Europe block decided on The European Unity, but everyone dropped the ‘European’ and simply called it Unity, so it stuck.

The North American block ran an online competition, and the name with the most votes won. So, their new country was called Aurora. Many suspected the Alaskans and Canadians all voted on this name as many of the rest were divided on a hundred other names, so it won.

Lee felt she would offer the Indians and a couple of the other more settled countries in their region that had signed the charter already the southern part of the area she had offered to their block and offer a bit more land to the North Europeans. About half of the African block was in a similar situation. She would shift the border over a bit for Aurora.

She had already drawn up a new map with the new divisions but wouldn’t make the announcement until the deadline was reached. She didn’t think she would get a lot of opposition.

The rest could suffer for their stupidity she decided.

Uren and Zan were setting up buildings for the manufacturing of Airships and seagoing ships on Harmony.

Lee had borrowed the wizards to transport two medium-size airships that could carry forty passengers each, two fishing vessels and two small cargo/passenger ships. It didn’t take Nick and Gary long to get them into business shipping supplies to Emeralda and Quartzland.

Justin and Alec were busy working out how they planned to investigate the bay they were going to set up in and planning where their protected living compounds would go. They had taken Hador, Snorre and Yves and a bunch of their scientists with them to conduct basic surveys of the area and pick where their domes and compounds would go.

Lee and Sean had left the tents and equipment with the Giants to take to Harmony to use as their temporary camp. Lee made sure Alec and Justin could erect shields to cover their camps from unwanted visitors.

The boys had fun investigating their interesting new homes. The vegetation for a start was like nothing any of them were used to, and they were fascinated. The Giants were used to living in forests with big trees. But the trees here were monstrous and mostly of the conifer variety. The Giants also loved the lower gravity.

They didn’t take long to pick out exactly were the two primary compounds would go. Justin got Kim and Gemma to join them, and then he and Kim taught the other two new wizards how to move and shape rocks.

On Justin’s side of the river was an old volcanic core. The team couldn’t find any species of local vegetation or animals that were particular to just that hill and decided they could safely relocate it.

Justin had purchased a heap of Sean’s crystal-blocks and some of his larger sola-cells. He made an energy grid on both sides of the river for them to use as back up energy while they worked.

So, they lifted the topsoil off as Lee had taught them and moved the rock underneath to form a lovely lever-arched bridge over the river. It was 12m wide and crossed the almost 750m of the river leaving a height above the high tide mark of 30m in its centre.

Justin sunk two major footings each at 150m from the shores as added support should the magical bonding he had included ever fails. Plus, it looked nice having them. The core was mostly basalt and iron, so Justin knew the bridge was strong.