Spacer Guilds
21-07-2004, 05:25
Six great balls of ice were captured for the moving of Mars and Venus in a vast interplanetary game of magnetic billiards. And though the project had long been rejected and lost to the public memory, the six "spacebergs" still existed, and continued their steady acceleration along their highly eliptical orbits to the inner system, and something had to be done about them.
Two of them, at least, were now out of the way, for control of them had been purchased by the Guild Mycenae and christened Zenokleia and Kosmoploi Major Heliokleia- "The Glory of Zeus" and "Great Spaceship Glory of the Sun".
Still far from their encounter with Jupiter, Guilders worked tirelessly on both Superships. Heliokleia was gaining a total cover of dark black, brown, and grey of carbon fiber and complex organics synthesized from its native ammonia and methane ices. Zenokleia, however, was the much more active of the two. Week-long burns of the NTRS used to capture it set it slowly spinning as it steadily gained a series of tunnels through its center where would run enormous induction rings, three large towers rising at 120 degree separations around its equator, and a skin of reflective metal foils that raised its albedo above even pure water ice, screaming to the solar system that "I AM HERE! COME LOOK!"
Two of them, at least, were now out of the way, for control of them had been purchased by the Guild Mycenae and christened Zenokleia and Kosmoploi Major Heliokleia- "The Glory of Zeus" and "Great Spaceship Glory of the Sun".
Still far from their encounter with Jupiter, Guilders worked tirelessly on both Superships. Heliokleia was gaining a total cover of dark black, brown, and grey of carbon fiber and complex organics synthesized from its native ammonia and methane ices. Zenokleia, however, was the much more active of the two. Week-long burns of the NTRS used to capture it set it slowly spinning as it steadily gained a series of tunnels through its center where would run enormous induction rings, three large towers rising at 120 degree separations around its equator, and a skin of reflective metal foils that raised its albedo above even pure water ice, screaming to the solar system that "I AM HERE! COME LOOK!"