Do you have any idea how much effort it takes to finish a City-Ship that is three miles (4.8 km) in circumference? Let me tell you—a hell of a lot. It would have been much easier if we managed to do everything while it was still on Earth, but that goes in the ‘if wishes were pennies’ column.

With all those new technologies discovered at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, it needed some major upgrades to bring it up to date. It didn’t seem right not to trick it out to my best ability. Also, now I know so much more than when we were still on Pagan Island.

An improved energy shield that was used in the hidden facility at the bottom of the ocean, was a must. I wanted to strengthen the hull with the new metal alloy I named Resistanium. Considering the amounts of required material, that will need to be done in stages. The limited resources I had to work with were a big problem, despite all Dave’s efforts to rectify the situation.

In addition to all the construction nanites that made the build possible, I needed to make a whole army of construction drones to be able to make any considerable change. There were plenty of human workers available, but they were simply not enough for projects of such magnitude, particularly for anything that needed to be done on the outside.

We had more than a few ex-astronauts who were familiar with working in the vacuum of space, and to tell the truth, they were very inefficient.

Far from it that they were not capable, those people were all highly skilled professionals that had gone through rigorous training and spent years educating themselves. Hell, most of them had PhDs that they could add to their name. Yet, a human being simply cannot compare to a semi-autonomous drone that does not require such bothersome things like a spacesuit, oxygen, bathroom breaks, and optimal temperature… you know, the essential stuff to keep living organisms in an animated state. Because space is deadly, more so than most places back on the big blue ball we all came from. One wrong move, a small accident that on Earth could be taken care of by a bandage, and it is game over.

The nanites can do wonders, but what the vacuum and cold of space can do to the soft tissues of the human body is horrendous. If the potential victim can be reached in time, there is a small chance of recovery. I read through all the files that the world's space agencies collected over the decades, and it was not a nice piece of reading. Especially if you consider that a good part of it was obtained by conducting many experiments on animals (since doing it on humans was deemed a bit excessive?).

When exposed to the perpetual vacuum of outer space, the difference in pressure will pull the air from your body. If there’s air left in your lungs—they would rupture. Oxygen and other gases inside will also expand. You'll balloon up to twice your normal size, but you won’t explode. The skin has enough elasticity to hold it all together. Any exposed liquid on a body will begin to vaporize (the surfaces of the tongue and eyes would boil). Without air in the lungs, blood will stop sending oxygen to the brain. And it essentially needs a constant supply to continue working. So, fifteen seconds later, a human would pass out, and ninety seconds after the exposure, he would die from asphyxiation.

I can still work with that, and the nanites can prolong that period somewhat, but... the cold. If that freezing cold reaches the brain, there is not much that can be done with a human-popsicle. When something freezes solid, crystals of ice are formed within it, and they slice through the cells the flesh is made of, like a million tiny daggers. (Did you ever try to freeze and then defrost a tomato?)

So let us all agree that space is a cold, inhospitable place, in which Homo Sapiens didn't evolve to live in, without artificial protection.

My decision to prohibit astronauts to do any prolonged construction work outside was not kindly received. They felt that it was a demotion to only use them as drone operators.

Thank all the deities we don’t have a worker’s union—I could see a strike from a mile away. It is safe to say that I will nip such a horrifying idea in the bud. If someone feels that infringes on his or her basic rights, they can protest to their heart’s content—back on Earth. Some people may start judging me for behaving as a hardcore capitalist, but you need to understand that progress means change, and people will need to start doing more thinking in the future and less menial work. That's the way the cookie crumbles; machines are more suitable for doing such tasks, blame it on the industrial revolution.

They did calm down when they started using fully immersive VR to operate those construction drones. It was almost as good as the real thing, but without all the inherited dangers of actually being out there.

***

It is said that the longest journey starts with a single step, and I started running like crazy from the get-go.

I think Dave was close to a nervous breakdown a few times, as my hunger for materials was pushing the limits of absurdity. He barely managed to get ahead of demand, and now he even had more than a dozen deputies to streamline the entire process. Buying recycling plants, landfills, and anywhere else where we could reclaim resources. Receiving e-scrap offices were established all over the world and we were spending billions by purchasing everything we could. Metric ton after metric ton of metals went into finishing remaining levels, and most of them were left practically empty.

They would not always remain so, people have a tendency to multiply, and with the top-of-the-line health care, we were experiencing a literal baby boom on the Ascension. Seriously, everywhere I looked, there were new babies and expecting mothers. Who would have thought that I would need the output of the entire nano-factory just to keep up with the demand for diapers, baby strollers, and all other paraphernalia young humans need to survive at that young and tender age?

Anyway, the first thing that was completed was the Promenade. It faced the Central Park on one side and there were restaurants and shops on the other. It started to be a matter of prestige if you were assigned an apartment closest to it; those in the back and closer to the outer edge of the ship were not the most wanted locations, despite that all apartments were essentially the same. Besides, most of the residential level was still unoccupied, waiting for population growth to catch up.

By the latest count, we had more than twenty-five thousand Solarian Union citizens, and that number will certainly grow with time. It is astounding to think this all started with Michael and me, and now there were so many people we were responsible for. Humbling and exhilarating, at the same time.

One of the things we were buying in the greatest quantity was… soil; that’s right, plain old dirt. It took a lot of it to cover acres on the agricultural level and turn it into something that would grow food. The layer needed to be a few feet deep, and that takes plenty of topsoil. The Ascension had dedicated big transporters that were only doing that—bringing the dirt to the ship. It caused a few changes to the original plans. For one, Hydroponics and Aquaponics got a dedicated level, a smaller one, and the conventional farming level had its own residents.

Remember that village elder, Chief Abu, who went crazy over the soil I showed him on the ship? Well, he, most of his tribe, and a few others decided to permanently relocate to that level so they could be closer to agricultural land. Of course, I needed to make them residences there, and they wanted them to be as authentic as possible, without losing any amenities they had recently grown used to.

It wasn’t too much trouble so I did it; making it look like a weird combination of a rustic African village with hi-tech intermingled everywhere. Now we had over one hundred citizens of all backgrounds and races living there. Since they were residents of what was essentially a village in space, they needed some domestic animals. For now, there were only about two hundred and fifty chickens, a few goats, and a dozen sheep. Exactly twenty cows and a few bulls; add to that a freaking menagerie of cats and dogs, and you will get the picture of a live-in zoo the place turned into.

And what those cows did to the smell of the transporter that transferred them was horrid. No matter what I did, that smell of manure still persists. (I eventually had to air them out in the vacuum of space, with the doors open… It helped a lot, but there is still a funky smell coming from the air purifiers.)

Anyway, to make sure all the animals were parasite and disease-free, took some doing, and a complete nano procedure they had all to go through. Even as a digital entity, I still have a deep-seated aversion towards fleas and ticks; it is one of those things.

The cows made one Italian scientist particularly happy, as he decided to open an ice-cream shop and make homemade organic Gelato… he was happy and more than ready to deal every day with the mob of customers. Michael tried it and I got a digital recording of the taste… damn, it was good.

That’s another thing, for a while I made Michael eat as if he was training for one of those food eating contests. All in my long term effort to catalog all the various tastes and food textures I possibly could. For the most part, he was a good sport about it, but the day I made him eat a spread of very spicy foods did not do wonders for our camaraderie. Ok, I may have gone overboard with a Ghost Pepper vs. Habanero taste test, but eating the seeds was important to get accurate measurements for calibrating my sensitivity to the Scoville scale. Really, it was all about science… yeah.

He didn’t want to speak to me for an entire day after that, and the sounds he made later that day in the bathroom were disturbing. If he was a bit more amicable about the whole ordeal, I would’ve reminded him that he could’ve used his CEI to turn off pain receptors in that particular part of his body. But, as I said, he was giving me the cold shoulder, so it serves him right.

All in all, there were still some fiddly bits to sort out, but the Ascension was shaping up into a well-oiled machine, and a nice place for people to raise their families. I’m sure there will still be a few obstacles to overcome; but then, life would be boring without them.