She also needed silicon, iron, and all the other materials that were more common in asteroid fields, but the carbon was the big one. She had some candidates from her previous searches for the colony planets, and so she programmed the interstellar probe to do some of the searches and sent it off with one of the interstellar communicators.
Meanwhile she set off to investigate other candidates, taking with her in the big interstellar transporter the rest of the interstellar communicators and the extra factories and supplies she had taken with her when she transported the colonies from Earth to their destination planets.
When Quant found the perfect location, she recalled the interstellar probe. The system she found had a planet that had broken up under the gravitational influence of a wandering gas giant. The gas giant was a proto-star that hadn’t yet quite made it to star status.
The gas giant had wandered through the system she was in, and on its way past had broken up a carbon-rich rocky planet not unlike early Earth. The debris of that planet orbited the star in a dense cloud. It would probably reform into a planet-size mass again, but in the meantime it was exactly what Quant needed for her plans.
For the interstellar transporter had one big problem: it was fragile. Quant could make a much stronger transporter with carbon compounds arranged in a geodesic structure.
To be of best use, it would also be bigger. Much bigger.
2295
Big Trouble
As Arcadia entered the fiftieth anniversary year of its founding, there was much to celebrate.
The colony now had over one and a half million people. Only a bit over half of the original colonists remained, almost all of them in their sixties and beyond. With large families being the rule on Arcadia, the bulk of the population was under thirty years old.
The metafactory that had arrived with the colonists had built factory after factory in an industrial district west of the power plant on the coast, and south of Arcadia City, the capital and original landing site of the colonists. The colony now made its own steel, refined its own petroleum products, and generated such diverse products as cloth, appliances, and vehicles.
The trees that colony headquarters had planted had matured and thickened into forests. The timber industry now produced tropical hardwoods like mahogany, rosewood, teak, and cocobolo from the forests around Arcadia City. Pine for construction was also available now, and the colder-climate hardwoods like oak, ash, cherry, and maple were slowly becoming more available from farther north.
Almost all of the original plastic temporary housing had been replaced with permanent construction. A number of the original plastic houses had been moved to other locations as some people struck out on their own to homestead further into the continent, and a few of those might still be used, but Arcadia City itself was devoid of the colorful dwellings.
Food was plentiful, mostly because it took so little effort. The herds of livestock had done well, even as the growth of the city had pushed their grazing lands further inland. Beef, pork, chicken, and mutton were widely available, and prices had come down.
Game animals, too, were plentiful. Once the wild animal populations had had a chance to grow, the council had distributed the bows and arrows, and most of the firearms, that had been brought from Earth. Locally made firearms were now also available, and hunting was a popular, and cost-saving, sport.
Most people bought and cooked most of their own foodstuffs now, although the big cafeterias in the original four permanent buildings were still open. One could eat there, and most people sometimes did, but they were no longer free and had not been for decades.
The downtown had grown up, and there were restaurants and other businesses operating in the central core.
The Uptown Market had grown, too. The Chen-Jasic family had purchased the other half of their block – the north half –and built a permanent dwelling for their growing family. Something like a large multi-story apartment building around a central courtyard.
The temporary houses had been sold off to others, and the market space expanded. The gardens had not been disturbed, though, and they produced spices, herbs, and teas that were much in demand.
The Chen-Jasic family had ultimately bought the block on the other side of Market Street from the Uptown Market. They moved the market space across the street and expanded it. The rest of that block to the east was made into a workshop space, in which the family produced other products for sale, many of them of Chinese design. Above that workshop space was more housing for the family.
The Chen-Jasic family was now almost twelve hundred people: the remaining original colonists, three generations of their children, and the spouses of those who had not married within the group. Many had married within the group, to people with whom they were unrelated.
Of course, not all members of the Chen-Jasic family lived in Arcadia City. There were also enclaves in some of the smaller cities that had sprung up, working on the family’s far-flung business interests. There were farms, and Chen-Jasic-raised pork was considered far superior to other brands, as were there teas.
On the site of the old market, west of Market Street and in front of the garden, they had built a restaurant. Authentic Chinese cuisine had proven popular as well, and the family prospered.
Other changes were less positive. The biggest one could be seen from space. Looking down on Arcadia City, the original four permanent buildings occupied the four city blocks in the center of town, where Quant Boulevard crossed Arcadia Boulevard. The hospital had an additional building, the school had an additional building, and the office building had multiple additional buildings.
But the administration building had spawned
