Chapter 6: Building a Dome

~~ September - Week 37 & Tychy Week 2 ~~

The next morning things really started to happen.

The first transport was already heading down with the first team. Cath had changed places with Biscuit. As their architectural designer, she was in charge of making sure everything came down in the order of what was required.

She had spent the day before with Rolo working out the logistics, of getting everything sends down to the ground. The central dome was the priority. They soon had the second transporter loaded and ready to roll.

Bing in between checks on the drives was busy with his list of components to be replicated. He had mentioned to Gary that since they had used most of the bricks, it wouldn’t hurt to send up a few loads of whatever was, comprised of carbon and silica so he could make more.

Terry had done a special run the afternoon before dropping down a load of bins. June had developed a flat-pack design. They could pack in a heap of empties on one trip, and they could be loaded back in, space permitting on each downward trip.

The sides simply folded down while empty, and you could stack a heap of them in a transporter. So, each trip back up to the ship could be filled with then full of rocks and whatever else was collected. When put on top of each other, they locked together and were very sturdy.

Terry took a bit longer coming back up because they had put a loader back on the ship and done a run to the beach 10km away. Gary had filled a heap of pallets with sand. Terry had then dropped him off back at the building site.

Here they filled the space the loader had taken up with pallets of rocks and dirt and vegetation collected from the grading of the site and the drenches for the fence. Consequently, it took Terry longer to come back down.

Tammy and Bray were kept busy loading and unloading the transporters. Nicko and Eze also had fun driving their pallet stackers. Eze took over taking the pallets of rocks and sand to the hoppers for the recyclers.

His machine could rotate the forks sideways. So, he drove up beside the hopper lifted up the load and tipped its contents in. They had one of the cargo robots programmed to locate the empty palettes and re-pack and then stack them.

Nicko’s job was to collect the pallets holding the dome pieces and dropping them off in order ready to load onto the transporters. Bray and Tammy also helped him in between shipments under Rolo’s directions.

The five soon found they worked together well and there was no arguments or misadventures, (well maybe a couple of close calls but they don’t count). They did, however, have lots of laughs.

At one point, Tammy had to smile to herself. The society princesses’ back home that she used to hang out with wouldn’t believe how she was spending her time.

If she told them she was wearing a skin-tight jumpsuit and driving a bloody forklift, while she watched her lover doing the same thing, they would think she was having a go at them. Nor would they believe that she had never been happier doing exactly what she was.

Back down on the planet, the work was going smoothly as well. Zan soon found that building the domes was little different from building the prefab homes. He simply did whatever the boys told him to do. He was fascinated with the new planet.

Life sure had got interesting with the humans around. It was so different from Utopia. It was a lot brighter for one thing. He was glad he had the sunnies as the boys called the covers for his eyes. The hat or slouchy as they called it, was very much needed as well.

He loved watching these people work. It was obvious, particularly with the Army guys even though half of them were female, that had done this before. Lee’s people also fitted in seamless with them. It was fascinating to watch these professionals at work.

It was equally gratifying to be considered part of their team. He was glad that he had come on the trip for this experience alone. He was also amused that the Burgis and the Prol boy’s speech had developed the ‘Aussie twang’ as Gary had called it.

Words such as awesome, crikey, dunny, cool, bugger, bloody, bastard, dickhead, drongo, fair dinkum, and fuck in many variations, often used in conjunction with each other were heard coming from them. Zan was amused that after four weeks of working with them, he had started using the lingo as well.

As he was day crew, he went back to the ship each night. The first night back Essco was very quiet and keep giving him looks but didn’t invite him back to his room. Zan wasn’t too worried. He behaved as if they were just friends, just like he usually did.

He happily, he told William and Hue of his adventures that day and then asked about their work. Hue had told him he had missed him in the lab. Essco had just grunted.

Hue had been splitting his time between working with Essco and working with Ria. He wasn’t enjoying sleeping alone. He had got used to spending at least half of his time with the couple.

The same happened the next night, but Essco at least was a bit more relaxed with him as he realised Zan hadn’t said anything and wasn’t doing anything, to indicate he had been his lover. He acted just like the friend he had been.

The next day was Sunday, and the crew got the day off. It had been decided other than critical jobs the rest day would be adhered too. As it was, while many slept later than usual, they all found they ended up doing little things in preparation for the next day.

Tammy gave a lunchtime concert, joined by Wally, who was a mean fiddle player and Bray played the drums. Iran played the keyboard. Ivan produced a harmonica. Everyone enjoyed the concert, and even Essco found his foot tapping to the beat.

Iran, Ivan and their girls got the others to play some country songs, and the two couples adapted some of their dances to the music. When the others grasped, they were very similar to country-dances still done on Earth they soon joined in.

There was a lot of laughing and giggling, and many couples wandered off for other personal entertainment after then event. Zan approached Dye and asked her if she wanted to go up to the observation deck with him.

They had spoken several times during the trip and Dye was happy to go with him. Essco found he was very jealous when he saw them walk out of the diner together. He sat and seethed for a while. Then found himself in the lift going up to the observatory.

He found Dye and Zan sitting on a bench talking. Zan saw him coming and was quietly amused by the look on the man’s face. He didn’t want to want him, but he obviously did.