Their individual assignments suited each of them and their talents, and they had all grown close.
The public was also excited about the hyperspace project. Not they, perhaps, but their children or grandchildren would gain the stars.
The prospect made Prime Minister Milbank very popular. His party had made major gains in the last elections, and, with a bigger majority, he was able to clean out or knock into line some of the more factious elements of his party.
Gerard Laporte, in particular, had stepped down from leadership and begun to tow Milbank’s line.
Wedding ceremonies on Arcadia were an amalgamation of cultural practices from Earth. In the Chen-Jasic family, those were primarily Chinese and American.
After ChaoPing and JuMing served tea to each other’s parents at the main table, they both consented to the marriage. The ‘I do’ of an American wedding had not been lost.
MinChao then declared the couple married in the eyes of the family.
And the party was on.
At one point, Jessica beckoned ChaoPing to her. ChaoPing took her husband’s hand and they approached their clan leaders and employers.
“Yes, Chen Zumu.”
“I have considered the matter carefully, and I think it is best that you also pursue your education full time, ChaoPing. You have shared with me your plans to delay children until you have completed your education, and this way I need not artificially delay ChaoLi’s and JieMin’s grandchildren.”
Jessica said it with a twinkle in her eye, and ChaoPing laughed.
“Thank you, Chen Zumu.”
“I have also assigned you a larger apartment together. It is not a family apartment – not yet – but it is bigger than the studio apartment JuMing has now.”
“Thank you, Chen Zumu.”
Jessica nodded.
“Chen Zufu and I are very happy for you both. Consider it a wedding present from us.”
“Thank you, Chen Zumu. Thank you, Chen Zufu.”
MinChao nodded.
“May you bear many healthy children,” he said.
The festivities were typical for a Chen-Jasic wedding. First dinner – primarily Chinese dishes – then the American tradition of a wedding cake. There was dancing after, beginning with the dance of father with daughter, and the cutting-in of the groom.
Sitting at the main table, JieMin and ChaoLi watched their friends and family celebrate with contentment.
“All is as it should be,” ChaoLi said.
JieMin nodded.
“Such a long way we have come,” he said.
“And a long way yet to go,” ChaoLi said.
She paused before continuing.
“But their children will have the stars.”
Quant #4
Geodesic
Janice Quant had been following the hyperspace project on Arcadia with interest. She knew Chen JieMin’s mathematics were right, as she had trod the same path more than a century ago. She certainly hadn’t expected someone on a colony planet to reproduce that work. He was an amazing talent, the sort the human race produced on occasion, seemingly at random.
Quant then watched with amazement as a political battle developed around a standoff on what was after all an engineering issue. Humans! She could clearly see several possible solutions, but she would not interfere.
Quant had to chuckle at Prime Minister Milbank’s solution to the political problem – cancel the project. That had certainly shaken things up. The completion of the project in private hands had been inevitable once it had become, once again, an engineering problem and not a political one.
The Chen family were involved, of course. There was something about that combination of people – the Chen-Jasic group of colonists – that had worked out really well in the colony environment. Some combination of tradition and ingenuity, hard work and thrift. And Matthew Jasic had been a big part of how well Arcadia had turned out.
All of Quant’s children – the colonies – were doing pretty well, if none quite so well as Arcadia. That would change, though, if Arcadia developed the hyperspace drive. Trade and travel would help bring up the other colonies, even as Arcadia prospered.
What the advent of the hyperspace drive meant, though, was that Quant had to complete the geodesic transporter. She would not be outrun by events.
The big sticking point had been how to join the five-hundred-mile-long carbon-filament tubes at the vertices. Six such tubes came together at most vertices of the geodesic sphere. The tubes had to be joined at precise angles, and the vertices had to be rigid and not susceptible to fatigue failure.
The solution was to spin carbon-fiber filaments between and among the tubes at the vertices. She had perfected that technology, and built a couple dozen vertex machines to do it. They labored now building the huge sphere.
Tugs pushed the carbon-fiber tubes into place. They were temporarily fastened and the angles meticulously measured and adjusted. Then one of the carbon-filament vertex machines moved into place and worked at bonding the new tube to the existing structure.
Quant watched the early stages carefully, looking for any error, any oversight, in her planning. But things were moving along now. It would still take twenty years to complete, but the process was moving smoothly along.
At the beginning of its construction, the structure looked almost flat. Only as it proceeded did its gentle curvature become apparent. The final structure would be twelve thousand miles in diameter.
The geodesic transporter could transport an entire planet.
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Author’s Afterword
I faced a problem writing Arcadia. There was of necessity a long passage of time between the landing of the colony and the development of the hyperspace drive. While I could have written a separate book about each of the four major events depicted here, it would have been hard to do so and keep up the pace of action and density of ideas I like to write.
There was also what Janice Quant was up to, which would be occurring
