Goldenrod was the wealthiest woman in the known universe-- she lived off world in the moon caves.
She was also the oldest human and spending time in the hollow lunar crevices practicing low-g acrobatics aided in her longevity. At seventeen, her father Citrine Bell III left her an empire that encompassed vast space acreage, and a fleet of asteroid refineries that endlessly paraded between the Kuiper Belt and Earth orbit. Bell was killed at the young age of 87 when base asteroid 1812 disintegrated under gravitational stress; normally this wouldn't be a problem, but the trillion megaton rock rotated amongst itself and ground the facilities into ruins, along with 76 staff and miners.
Goldenrod didn't believe in getting her hands dirty, she wasn't the digger her father was, always left behind with surrogates, wearing the finest weaves that could be harvested from the Sun gardens at the Martian poles. With her Imperial coin she claimed everything inside of Ramjet's reach that would contribute to her immortality.
She is a legendary figure, almost mythic and, until now, best known for her discovery of a deceased neutron star fragment found pin-balling amid the asteroids. Historians speculate that the dangerous neutron object was the real cause of Citrine Bell's demise. Nearly bankrupting the entire mining industry, Goldenrod caused the neutron shell to be machine settled and mined. No object that lands on such an object could ever achieve escape velocity, and most would be crushed and incorporated into the neutron's mass. Via explosions and herculean mathematics miniscule chunks were blown free, collected and refined.
Which made her even richer.
If Goldenrod imagined it, she owned it. While most would employ a Diminutive in lieu of a Gnome, she bio engineered to suit her purposes. Goldenrod bankrolled all the smartest scientists, and when they finally discovered the Yellowness of the Sun, and its properties, she endeavored to mine that as well. This time the expense eclipsed her holdings, and threatened to ruin the economy of Earth, but the payoff was just too tempting. The Yellowness of the Sun would grant eternal life and a sunny disposition to Goldenrod, and her chosen few; why, there was enough Yellowness for everyone, should she choose to share.
No substance known could penetrate the Sun and collect the illusive Yellowness, nothing but the compressed matter of a neutron star...and Goldenrod was in possession of nearly every available morsel. It was calculated that the mere teaspoon of a neutron star equaled the mass of 900 times the great Giza pyramid, a structure well documented in historical documents, but long wiped clean of the Earth by ancient sandstorms. The mined fragments had certainly lost the potency they maintained as a collapsed star, but as an iron ore it was beyond dense and certainly up to the task. She built a Bussard Ramjet of the stuff.
The project took a decade, but Goldenrod had time to spare; once the equipment was prepared, the mining would go quickly. Flying to the Sun was a short journey, merely a month at a low galactic speed would position the Ramjet in a constant orbit. There the heavy artillery would be deployed, dense rocket miners propelled into the heart of the Sun to scoop out Yellowness and return to the mother refinery. The Yellowness would remain in the rocket harvesters, kept stable in a compressed gravitational field, aided by remnants of the failed neutron star. As soon as all rockets returned to the Ramjet, a matter of days, all would return to an Earth orbit. Nothing of the mission would ever leave orbit; any neutron substance would sink into the planet's crust and cause irreparable harm; Earth wasn't meant to moderate such a dense material. Any person who partook of the Yellowness would have to rendezvous with the orbiting Ramjet.
All went well, and Goldenrod heard of the mission's success. She dismissed her Gnomes and dressed in an attire specially made for the occasion. Moon drab was out of fashion, though she preferred it while in the sanctuary of the lunar caves. Her robes were flowing icterine with flavescent highlights and Goldenrod draped her body with the lightest of hammered gold chains and amber jewels. Even so her arraignments weighed some 50 pounds and she required the aid of hidden propellers to support her.
Media filled the domed crater as Goldenrod entered her ship, and her fleet departed the moon for a leisurely voyage into the Ramjet's apogeal orbit where the Yellowness was being prepared. Embarking she was informed of the preparations and their progress, while served Honeydo and a Venusian salad.
Goldenrod was elated, she was to be the first to receive the Yellowness.
The doctors informed her that the substance was to be injected directly from the containment vessel which culled it and would be the temperature of the Sun. The immediate pain would be intense, but after the initial shock, her joy in an everlasting life would be complete. Goldenrod disrobed and seated herself, preparing with the assistance of her personal mind-guru. The doctors advanced upon her pristine flesh with the needle and injected the Yellowness.
Her screams were recorded for posterity, and for all of Goldenrod's imperial poise, she was inconsolable; the pain was as abrupt as a belly flop into hell's magma pool. But the amount injected was miniscule and after her whimpering convalescence, Goldenrod stood, naked and glimmering with a renewed life, inconceivable in Rapture. The scientists and physicians gaped; here was something unthought of brought to light, and all due to their immortal queen, Goldenrod.
The Sun, beating with a heart diminished by undetectable micronanobits, discerned the joyous Yellowness, burning 150 million kilometers distant; and, as a father mother and son, reached out tender tendrils of light to embrace her lost part of being, then drew it back into her heart, to enjoin and love.
And from the Earth, millions watched as an arm of the Sun reached across the heavens and swept over the fa
ce of Earth, burning off a swath of atmosphere, and return to its source, pulling the wreckage of the Bussard Ramjet and its occupants back into the fiery depths. Her screams were broadcast planet wide, and for an eternity; Goldenrod was encased in an impermeable shell of compressed iron that would withstand the hottest furnace until the end of time, and she herself was immortal, enduring the heat of the Sun in an oven constructed especially for her internment.
Or until the Sun went supernova.
She was also the oldest human and spending time in the hollow lunar crevices practicing low-g acrobatics aided in her longevity. At seventeen, her father Citrine Bell III left her an empire that encompassed vast space acreage, and a fleet of asteroid refineries that endlessly paraded between the Kuiper Belt and Earth orbit. Bell was killed at the young age of 87 when base asteroid 1812 disintegrated under gravitational stress; normally this wouldn't be a problem, but the trillion megaton rock rotated amongst itself and ground the facilities into ruins, along with 76 staff and miners.
Goldenrod didn't believe in getting her hands dirty, she wasn't the digger her father was, always left behind with surrogates, wearing the finest weaves that could be harvested from the Sun gardens at the Martian poles. With her Imperial coin she claimed everything inside of Ramjet's reach that would contribute to her immortality.
She is a legendary figure, almost mythic and, until now, best known for her discovery of a deceased neutron star fragment found pin-balling amid the asteroids. Historians speculate that the dangerous neutron object was the real cause of Citrine Bell's demise. Nearly bankrupting the entire mining industry, Goldenrod caused the neutron shell to be machine settled and mined. No object that lands on such an object could ever achieve escape velocity, and most would be crushed and incorporated into the neutron's mass. Via explosions and herculean mathematics miniscule chunks were blown free, collected and refined.
Which made her even richer.
If Goldenrod imagined it, she owned it. While most would employ a Diminutive in lieu of a Gnome, she bio engineered to suit her purposes. Goldenrod bankrolled all the smartest scientists, and when they finally discovered the Yellowness of the Sun, and its properties, she endeavored to mine that as well. This time the expense eclipsed her holdings, and threatened to ruin the economy of Earth, but the payoff was just too tempting. The Yellowness of the Sun would grant eternal life and a sunny disposition to Goldenrod, and her chosen few; why, there was enough Yellowness for everyone, should she choose to share.
No substance known could penetrate the Sun and collect the illusive Yellowness, nothing but the compressed matter of a neutron star...and Goldenrod was in possession of nearly every available morsel. It was calculated that the mere teaspoon of a neutron star equaled the mass of 900 times the great Giza pyramid, a structure well documented in historical documents, but long wiped clean of the Earth by ancient sandstorms. The mined fragments had certainly lost the potency they maintained as a collapsed star, but as an iron ore it was beyond dense and certainly up to the task. She built a Bussard Ramjet of the stuff.
The project took a decade, but Goldenrod had time to spare; once the equipment was prepared, the mining would go quickly. Flying to the Sun was a short journey, merely a month at a low galactic speed would position the Ramjet in a constant orbit. There the heavy artillery would be deployed, dense rocket miners propelled into the heart of the Sun to scoop out Yellowness and return to the mother refinery. The Yellowness would remain in the rocket harvesters, kept stable in a compressed gravitational field, aided by remnants of the failed neutron star. As soon as all rockets returned to the Ramjet, a matter of days, all would return to an Earth orbit. Nothing of the mission would ever leave orbit; any neutron substance would sink into the planet's crust and cause irreparable harm; Earth wasn't meant to moderate such a dense material. Any person who partook of the Yellowness would have to rendezvous with the orbiting Ramjet.
All went well, and Goldenrod heard of the mission's success. She dismissed her Gnomes and dressed in an attire specially made for the occasion. Moon drab was out of fashion, though she preferred it while in the sanctuary of the lunar caves. Her robes were flowing icterine with flavescent highlights and Goldenrod draped her body with the lightest of hammered gold chains and amber jewels. Even so her arraignments weighed some 50 pounds and she required the aid of hidden propellers to support her.
Media filled the domed crater as Goldenrod entered her ship, and her fleet departed the moon for a leisurely voyage into the Ramjet's apogeal orbit where the Yellowness was being prepared. Embarking she was informed of the preparations and their progress, while served Honeydo and a Venusian salad.
Goldenrod was elated, she was to be the first to receive the Yellowness.
The doctors informed her that the substance was to be injected directly from the containment vessel which culled it and would be the temperature of the Sun. The immediate pain would be intense, but after the initial shock, her joy in an everlasting life would be complete. Goldenrod disrobed and seated herself, preparing with the assistance of her personal mind-guru. The doctors advanced upon her pristine flesh with the needle and injected the Yellowness.
Her screams were recorded for posterity, and for all of Goldenrod's imperial poise, she was inconsolable; the pain was as abrupt as a belly flop into hell's magma pool. But the amount injected was miniscule and after her whimpering convalescence, Goldenrod stood, naked and glimmering with a renewed life, inconceivable in Rapture. The scientists and physicians gaped; here was something unthought of brought to light, and all due to their immortal queen, Goldenrod.
The Sun, beating with a heart diminished by undetectable micronanobits, discerned the joyous Yellowness, burning 150 million kilometers distant; and, as a father mother and son, reached out tender tendrils of light to embrace her lost part of being, then drew it back into her heart, to enjoin and love.
And from the Earth, millions watched as an arm of the Sun reached across the heavens and swept over the fa
ce of Earth, burning off a swath of atmosphere, and return to its source, pulling the wreckage of the Bussard Ramjet and its occupants back into the fiery depths. Her screams were broadcast planet wide, and for an eternity; Goldenrod was encased in an impermeable shell of compressed iron that would withstand the hottest furnace until the end of time, and she herself was immortal, enduring the heat of the Sun in an oven constructed especially for her internment.Or until the Sun went supernova.
Dinosaur Hand: Ooh, I liked these movies; where did you pick them up?
Tom: Hi Dinosaur Hand; it's been awhile since we got together for a review.
