On the other side of the likend that we had been ced on was the workshop that I had set up. It had taken the whole three months that I had spent teaching Rhea to construct, and now was as good of a time to show it to her as ever.


    Initially I was nning to research space travel on my own using the free time that Rhea spent resting but that was not possible. Darwin had used the term dual evolution when he said that he would evolve us implying that this was a team operation. I would never deny the help of my apprentice but I had always thought of her ideas as an afterthought, something that was most likely wrong. However with the amount of time spent teaching her an implicit trust had grown between us and although I had always intended for her to help me, I had only intended her to help with the testing, withing up with ideas.


    The thought of doing this on my own, now, was not something that I would seriously consider. Not even for sentimental reasons but for the feeling of trust andfort that I had grown to feel from her. It was so much that ideas flowed easier in her presence.


    …


    "Woah" with wide eyes Rhea eximed, seemingly not aware that she had said anything. Still staring wide eyed at the facilities that had been created. It was a utilitarian design, meaning that anything non-essential was gone. Thefort of a bed, of a house, those were not needed. Hard metal floors led to the entrance, the walkway to the dock that I had created was paved by metal. It was not for any reason other than that we would be testing things here and a clean ce where we could test things in a vacuum with no other variables would help immensely.


    "Is this… A dock?" Rhea questions as I lead her to themand room, where we would be living for the foreseeable time.


    "Yes, to travel the stars we need a dock"


    To be able to create something that would allow us to sail the stars and explore the unknowns. That was more important than anything else.


    …


    We had arrived at themand center, the windows overlooking the insanelyrgeunching bay. Though there were no ships built in the dock, all the facilities that would help in the creation of one were installed. Anything that I could think of that might help with building a star worthy ship was built.


    "Is that?" Rhea asked, looking at a certain piece of technology, one that I was especially proud of.


    "Yeah it is" I reply to Rhea confirming her thoughts.


    It was arger matter generator, instead of the cubic foot of material a day that it could make, this one, if it worked ording to my calctions, could produce a whole ton of materials a day. That was provided that we had the right resources to make them. Anything that we throw into it would work but there was only a finite amount that we could go through before the like ball of dirt we stood on ran out.


    That was exactly the reason why we needed to make it to one of thoses, not only because of the objective that we had been given but to make use of the resources that they would present us as long as we were able to make it there.


    Before we could even think of using thoses'' resources, we would need to use the dirt ball under our feet to make do. It would notst forever, by my best estimates we would have about three more years of continual use before the living area bes too small for us.


    However we could extend that by a further two years by reusing the waste that we will undoubtedly make.<novelnext></novelnext>


    "Delta?" Rhea asks, breaking me out of my thoughts.


    "Yes?"


    "How do we start? I''ve never seen any blueprints for a vehicle capable of flightlet alone something capable of space travel"


    There was a tiny hint of worry in her eyes but that was not needed, with ourbined intelligence we would be able to do this, even if we had to work up from ground vehicles to space travel.


    "That''s the beauty of this," I respond, a smirk on my face and tone, "We get to innovate the whole process"


    …


    The start was rough, with no data nor blueprints to go off of we had to start with ideas and although I had more than enough ideas to improve upon things, my creativity wascking when it came to building something from scratch.


    Even the arm that I was so proud of was the culmination of many ideas that would improve or work around restrictions but to start. To start on something that we both had never encountered or even thought of before, it was a daunting task.


    For now though we were stuck, we had all the resources that we could ever hope for but nothing to build. Though that wasn''t entirely true, we had tried a couple of ideas but they had not worked. There was one obvious feature that wecked, aether. It was the glue that held together most of our inventions but the voice/feeling had told us to use mechanical means only, no aether and it upheld that. When we had tried to integrate aether into the inventions it had not worked, exploding into a million pieces. No matter the reinforcement they would just explode.


    I grit my teeth looking for something to do to take out my frustration on theck of progress. I looked down at Delta''s rifle.


    ''This will work''


    Picking it up, I idly noticed how Delta''s gaze fell on me though nothing came of it.


    Even though Delta kept her rifle as her most prized possession, the time that we had spent here together had grown an implicit trust.


    Before where I would not even be able to touch it without harsh reprimand now I was allowed to fire it.