It was originally just a test of new building technologies being developed for a Mars colony, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger. The Mercury colony was enormous. Building it in space meant it didn’t have to support any weight, not even its own, during construction. There was no limit to its size. And man likes a challenge. The whole world seemed to be consumed by it: building. It all seemed like a dream. Then, when it became visible to the naked eye from Earth’s surface, the dream cracked and reality was left; an exact duplicate of what the dream had been. That began to change opinions. Groups of anti-Mercurians arose; protests, demonstrations, riots. “Because we can,” wasn’t a good enough reason to build anymore. None of them could make it to space to cause actual harm to the station, but people at home started checking their locks.
For people like Charlotte Wolfe, that was all too personal. Her husband, Spencer, had been promoted from research engineer directly to project manager at the Mercury colony. After he had solved the issues with the planet-core tech, a great deal was expected of him. Charlotte was left with two small children and an otherwise empty house with nothing to look forward to but a weekly video chat with Spencer, thousands of miles away. On his first trip to the colony, Charlotte ignored her misgivings at the launch pad. She gave Spencer a goodbye kiss and hid the biting icy part of her mixed feelings from her children who didn’t understand what that monstrous obelisk was that their daddy was walking into. Survey and design were only scheduled for a month.
“What’s taking so long?” asked Charlotte.
“We’ve run into a few snags, that’s all,” replied Spencer.
“What kind of snags turn a month into four?”
“It’s just...plans keep changing. They’ve decided to see if they can keep building until it has gravity -- natural gravity, and can support atmosphere. There’s a lot more potential for the tech than we realized.”
“Gravity? There’s a lot of potential for your family too. The longer you’re gone the more we risk losing it. Do you know when you’re coming home yet?”
“Soon. I hope. It’s over my head Charlotte; I’m not really the one making decisions.”
“Well, tell whoever is they’d better get on it.” She grinned.
“I know Hon, I miss you too. Tell the kids I love them. I’ll try and relay your message, but I’m not sure how well it will go over.” He chuckled.
Charlotte was at the pad eight months later when Spencer finally came home.
On it went; building and building, pro-building, protesting, living life normally but with the knowledge that normal was going to include a new planet.
There were rumors that engines and weapons were being built into the very structure of that new planet -- a traveling world that could either protect or destroy. One could never tell with rumors.
By Spencer’s third trip, Charlotte didn’t even look out the window as the shuttle launched. She couldn’t. She hated the colony. She wasn’t really anti-Mercurian -- she couldn’t care less about politics. She hated it for the simple fact that it took her husband away.
Eventually it seemed that there were two moons in the sky. Problems with tides and magnetic fields were already cropping up, all promptly squelched by the world building force; but the bigger problems still seemed far distant. Earth was still home.
Still, the only people on the station were scientists and engineers. Calculating, designing, researching, recalculating; everything had to be done on the largest scale anyone could imagine. It’s remarkable how small the details of that scale are. A planet was being created. Orbits had to be mapped; the gravity of the Earth, the moon, the sun, and the other planets would all be affected. You couldn’t just plop a new planet right in the middle of it all and expect luck to work things out. Every factor had to be accounted for. Atmosphere had to be carefully formulated. Some of it could be manufactured, but most of it would have to come from what was already available. It would be filtered and enriched and transported to the Mercury colony leaving the Earth with nothing. The operation would be colossal: as atmosphere moved life would have to follow but enough had to be left on Earth to support the plants, animals, and people that would be waiting for the next transport. All other needed materials would be moved the same way; filtered and separated, transferred by degrees. A veritable Garden of Eden would be created, a hellish waste left. It would have to be done in carefully planned stages. Noah’s arc across orbits, and the flood would be everything, and it would be disappearing not growing.
Construction reached a critical point; the colony almost had enough gravity for civilians to start migrating. One morning, Spencer Wolfe looked out at the Earth-rise over the colony horizon. It still felt like a dream. Opportunity, hope, loneliness; the colony was many things to him. Home was not one of them. He rolled the lucky red lego his son had sent him in his hand and sighed.
“Earth to Spencer, we need you over here,” yelled a worker. “Or should I say colony to Spencer?” Spencer jumped and almost lost his grip on the lego.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I’ve been calling you for five minutes,” said the worker. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m sorry. You know, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me just now. I could have sworn your voice was coming from Earth,” Spencer replied.
“Wow Spence, I think you’ve been wearing that helmet a little too long.”
“Yeah, maybe so. What did you need?”
“The transport with the core-components just got here. We need your okay on install.”
“Alright. Lets go.”
Time was growing short for the Earth. Spencer felt a twinge of regret as they bounded off to the transport dock. He’d miss the rest of the Earth-rise. There would only be so many more of those before it was just a woeful rock.
The Mercurians, had adopted a new system of days and hours and even years to match the growing size of their planet. Sooner or later everyone would have to get used to that; different years. Even Charlotte. The strangest part was that the scale would keep changing as long as the planet kept growing. It almost seemed like it could grow now, instead of just being built. Then one morning, Mercury colony time, the whole Earth was suddenly flooded with a single data feed. Every broadcast on the planet was commandeered to show a video of one single action with one single sound, only a few seconds long. A helmeted figure, so used to life in space where Newton’s laws are on hold, let go of a small red block -- and it dropped.
