tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49765771392906019882023-11-15T10:52:55.113-08:00somestorySi Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-79075102442259438752010-12-29T03:09:00.001-08:002010-12-29T03:09:10.927-08:00<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XsjDXrOcc6k/TRroaNAiUYI/AAAAAAAABQY/YS58gvhTWa0/s1600/pubstop_graphic_branded_en_opt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="123" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XsjDXrOcc6k/TRroaNAiUYI/AAAAAAAABQY/YS58gvhTWa0/s320/pubstop_graphic_branded_en_opt.jpg" alt="Keterangan Gambar" width="320" /></a>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-39260908138360325502010-10-16T00:30:00.001-07:002010-12-24T00:32:46.071-08:00Sebuah Tips, Layouts For Blogspot, Gadget For Blogspot,<a href="http://www.sebuahtips.info/">Sebuah Tips</a><br />
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<a href="http://facemot.blogspot.com/">Facemot</a>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-20718664096319098942010-04-18T01:17:00.000-07:002010-04-18T01:18:26.480-07:00<div style="text-align: center;" class="fullpost"><span style="font-size:180%;"><a href="http://sebuahtips.blogspot.com"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sebuah Tips</span></a><br /><br /><a href="http://nasyidplaylist.blogspot.com"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nasyid PlayList</span></a></span><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-62332567624674361032009-04-18T23:23:00.000-07:002009-04-18T23:23:00.776-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 25CHAPTER - December 31, 2108: Happy new year 2109<br />January 7, 2109 : Tunneling starts to reach the long low 6th cavern nine<br />hundred feet away. This was a new experience for the drillers. So far the<br />caverns had been close enough to being on the same level but this dig was at a<br />six percent down grade the whole way. It was difficult to keep loose material<br />from getting in the way. A front end loader was constantly removing the loose<br />material. After a while they got the knack of it and started making pretty good<br />progress. At one hundred feet in they they ran into solid quartz. They<br />summoned Harold Dixon, the mine manager “what do you recommend we do<br />about this Harold?” “This is a good thing and a bad thing, I would like to take<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />some samples for assay and I would like for you to tunnel to get a crawl space<br />to the other side. Also get the scientists to get you some pictures of what this<br />looks like, I need to know the size and contents of this formation. Is there<br />another route you could take to still get to Utopia?” “There is a longer way, yes,<br />Lets get Tim and Carter and see if they have any idea's.” “A few minutes later<br />Tim showed up with Hal Johnson, and all the charts of known caverns in the<br />area. If you went to the side of the hourglass away from the winery and<br />changed direction and dug off to the right of the hour glass you would only have<br />a short dig 150 feet to a very large cavern that we can tell little about but we<br />know that it is almost 68 square miles in size and we really didn't want to have<br />to pressurize a hole that big at this time. Now, however since we have<br />additional atmosphere apparatus and have that big generator that we were<br />thinking of using in Utopia we could use it in that big cavern, assuming there is<br />water and a hot spot somewhere in there. If not we could lay down an air tight<br />tunnel which would be twelve miles long and then tunnel another two hundred<br />fifty feet and we come out in this little arm of Utopia.” Jonson mumbled as he<br />ran his finger over the chart. Harold said “I would like to see you guys go that<br />route and leave this quartz to us hard rock guys, there is no way to tell, of<br />course but I smell gold there.” as he pointed to the quartz barrier. “Why don't<br />you guys knock off for the rest of the day and I will have new marching orders<br />for you in the morning. Tim and Hal went back to the Government cavern and<br />connected with Paul and Carter. Johnson explained the plan change to them<br />and they agreed. “If Harold wants that quartz lets give it to him and take on the<br />little giant instead. I always kinda wanted to go that way in the first place. It<br />was just the challenge that cavern poses to our environmental facilities that sent<br />us on the route we were taking anyway.<br />January 20, 2109 The tunnelers started their dig again, this time to the<br />little giant. They ran in to lots of rocks but still managed to make pretty good<br />headway. The rocks were all being sent back for the scientists to study and<br />identify. These guys didn't know much about rocks but generally the harder<br />they are the more valuable they are, and these were very hard rocks, a hammer<br />wouldn't break one or cleave it.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-47843545566050527452009-04-17T23:21:00.000-07:002009-04-17T23:21:00.624-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 24CHAPTER – Mars Runner makes it's first docking<br />December 22, 2108: There was a lot of interesting and long awaited<br />cargo on Mars Runner. The two items that got the most attention however were<br />150 twelve foot fiber glass fishing boat kits, They came disassembled with the<br />boats stacked one inside the other. There were several large crates with<br />hardwood seats, fixtures and oars. There was even 150 two horsepower<br />electric trolling motors, which also came partially disassembled. Within just a<br />few days everything was assembled before Tim ever got around to assigning a<br />crew to do the work. Soon there were boats available everywhere that fishing<br />was allowed.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />The second item of intense interest to the workers on Mars and their talk<br />radio show was the arrival of the wine and beer making equipment and plants.<br />There was also enough grapes hops barley and yeast ready to use for them to<br />start production as soon as they were set up. They chose the hour glass for<br />their operation. Byron and Austin had leased eighty acres from The Company<br />they had already learned what they thought they needed to know to make beer<br />and wine. In the public interest and because there was so much surplus labor<br />around, Tim approved them having the use of four crews if they agreed to keep<br />them busy. The brewery and two houses appeared almost overnight. Within<br />the week the rest of their eighty acres had been planted in barley, hops, grapes<br />and sugar cane. They even had volunteers showing up after work and on their<br />days off to see if they could help. With their initial order they had ordered a<br />supply of the Mars soil converter plus two tons of fertilizers and ten million Earth<br />worms. The soil in this vineyard and farm would be very rich indeed. They first<br />tried making their beer and wine in five gallon containers so as not to ruin too<br />much of it if things didn't turn out as expected. What they got for their trouble<br />was drinkable beer and wine but it was none too good. One of the construction<br />workers that had helped them in setting up their facility tasted both products<br />and said, “I thought you guys new what you were doing, this is slop,” he said as<br />he took another big drink. “I suppose you could do better, wise ass.” “Oh hell<br />yes, I was an apprentice with Barble Beer before I got this Job. I'll make you a<br />deal' let me make a carboy (five gallon water bottle) of beer and if it is not better<br />than this I will drink it all. Austin said “No matter who made a carboy of beer<br />you would drink it all” “True.” said Gene, the construction worker but seriously<br />maybe I could give you some pointers.” With that he went into the brewery, got<br />out the equipment and proceeded to show them how to brew a small batch of<br />beer. Ten days later it was ready to drink. “This may be the best beer I have<br />ever tasted,” Byron, Suds said “How would like a part time job as brew meister?<br />Maybe I can do better than that. Gene called Tim on his cell, “Tim where are<br />you?” Gene ask. “Carla and I are at the spa, who is this Gene?” Yeah it's Gene,<br />look Byron and Austin and I have a deal for you we will be right there.” They all<br />three jumped into the cart that Gene had come over in and took off or the spa.<br />They were there in ten minutes. “OK Tim here is the deal, I would like for you to<br />give me a permanent assignment in the Hour Glass or doing something that<br />would benefit The Company enough that you could justify it, have you got<br />anything like that?” “I don't know of anything off hand Gene but I will keep it in<br />mind, why the request?” “I'll tell you why Tim, I recently tasted some brew that<br />these two dodo's made and you almost couldn't drink the stuff, it was terrible.”<br />“Terrible,” Austin repeated. “Then I made them a carboy full of good beer and<br />Byron said it was the best beer he had ever tasted. I know how to make beer<br />and they don't. Since this is the only brewery on Mars don't you think it would<br />be in the beer drinking publics best interest to have good beer?” “I agree but let<br />me think, I know we don't have a park ranger in the hour glass yet and there are<br />valuable natural beauty assets there that need to be protected. We already<br />have rangers on duty in paradise and The Company cavern to protect the fish,<br />how would you like to be the ranger at the Hour Glass, Gene?” “Fantastic, I<br />knew I could count on you Tim.” So it was that Hour glass brewery got a brew<br />meister and the folks on Mars got some really good beer.<br />Beer containers were a problem Austin and Byron hadn't thought of<br />before ordering all their other stuff, but Gene had the answer, I will just put a<br />large covered vat in the square and the customers can bring their own<br />containers. The kitchens have hundreds of plastic jugs that stuff they use<br />comes in and they have just been storing the empties in the back of one of the<br />caverns in hopes they would be of use some day. Well we can retrieve a<br />couple thousand of those jugs, wash them and give them to people that don't<br />have containers when they buy beer from our vat. Three weeks later they had<br />the vat set up and Byron was selling beer every evening from 1700 to 1900.<br />Gene turned out to be not a very good ranger but he was a heck of a brewer.<br />Most people swore that Hour Glass brewery on Mars made the best beer they<br />had ever tasted. Byron and Austin made so much money that they bought out<br />Genes contract with The Company and made him a partner. In the meantime<br />Gene, who was actually a pretty sharp guy had been hitting the Internet- and<br />boning up on wine making. After several hundred hours of study he thought he<br />was ready. He got out the ingredients and the equipment and proceed to make<br />a carboy of wine. It was a burgundy and it was pretty good so after Austin and<br />Byron approved he started making vats of it. He then tried a Chablis which was<br />also pretty good and Gene figured considering the competition it was good<br />enough. Within six months they were also selling table wine in the square, no<br />one seemed to rave about the wine like they did the beer but they bought it<br />anyway.<br />Also among the items that were brought in on Mars Runner were an<br />assortment of salt water fish and enough mixture to convert ten million gallons<br />of fresh water to salt water. Helen asked,”What do you need that stuff for, we<br />have plenty of salt in the caverns, there are big deposits of it. Grace told Helen<br />“There is a lot more than just salt in this mixture, Helen this is the residue that<br />results from the dehydration of ocean water. There are hundreds of nutrients in<br />this mixture that salt water fish require. For the next month Grace and Helen<br />and three crews were busy setting up the Ocean and introducing the salt water<br />fish.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-59925324866074527242009-04-16T23:16:00.000-07:002009-04-16T23:16:00.367-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 23CHAPTER – The Hour Glass<br />November 30, 2108: the tunneling crew broke through into their 4th<br />cavern. This was another large and beautiful cavern similar to Paradise. It was<br />almost a perfect hour glass in shape and as luck would have it they had broken<br />through right at the thin part of the hour glass. When the powerful portable<br />lights were shined in both directions they saw stalagmites, stalactites, and<br />columns in every direction. It was later established that the hour glass had<br />about 22 square miles of floor space. There were five lakes averaging ten<br />acres each in size and all joined by a river that ranged from fifteen feet to 50<br />feet in width. The water here moved quite slowly. Soundings disclosed that the<br />lakes were all more than two hundred feet deep and even the river ran over 50<br />feet deep in places. Best of all the water was warm. There must be magma<br />somewhere here that is not too far below the surface. They didn't really need<br />another park but it looked like they had found one. Once details of the Hour<br />Glass cavern were released they dominated not only the talk radio show but<br />Rusty spent at least half of his local news half hour discussing the new cavern<br />and what it could mean for their community.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />December 2, 2108: Tunneling starts to reach the fifth cavern, 1100 feet<br />away.<br />December 15, 2108: The fissures had all been sealed and pressure<br />tested and atmosphere introduced. The temperature in the hour glass was 86<br />degrees. Back in the Government cavern the temperature had been down in<br />the forties when Tim and Carla first arrived and the caverns had to be heated<br />for people to be comfortable. With the tunnels open and fans circulating the air<br />the temperature had equalized at 72 degrees everywhere and nothing had to be<br />heated.<br />December 15, 2108: Grace had more water than she new what to do<br />with. She was trapping fish from the other ponds and introducing them to the<br />lakes in the Hour Glass. Walkways were laid so as to encircle each of the lakes<br />and along the rivers. It might be a couple years before the fishing got really<br />good, and no one was allowed to fish at the Hour Glass lakes for over a year<br />but the fish that Grace had introduced were thriving. Grace now had a full crew<br />working for her doing nothing but making fish food, and migrating fish. Talk<br />radio spent a lot of time talking about fishing.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-64859456925276957432009-04-15T23:11:00.000-07:002009-04-15T23:11:00.522-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 22CHAPTER – Mars Supply Two returns<br />November 15, 2108: Mars Supply Two docked, Mars was closer to Earth<br />now and the travel time was a little less. The three hundred passengers that<br />they carried were mostly construction workers. There was more lumber than<br />the colony had ever had before. There were four hundred pallets of<br />merchandise for Super Store and six new employees. The Company who had<br />been operating the first class restaurant sent sixteen employees and a<br />manager. There was enough equipment, supplies and frozen food to fully equip<br />a first class restaurant. There were also five hundred cases of liquor. More was<br />due to arrive in December when Mars Runner made its first docking at the Mars<br />orbiter.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />November 21,2108: The building for the restaurant had already been<br />built in the square next to the Bank and waiting when the ship arrived The<br />building had been plumbed and wired so it took less than a week to install the<br />equipment. The restaurant opened for business Today. Prices were<br />established at $200.00 for a first class meal with two drinks Included but two<br />more optional at $10.00 each. Alcohol was limited to diners. The new<br />restaurant dominated the talk radio program for several days.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-1538898108346342032009-04-14T22:57:00.000-07:002009-04-14T22:57:01.091-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 21CHAPTER – The Ocean<br />October 7, 2108: The tunneling crew broke through to the third cavern on<br />their way to Utopia. As soon as breakthrough occurred the scientists dressed in<br />Mars suits descended on the place and started their measurements . The<br />cavern was almost circular and covered about twelve square miles. Almost<br />the whole cavern floor was covered by one giant lake. A warm spring entered<br />at one side of the cavern and fed the large lake. There was a stream exiting the<br />lake and flowing off into the a crevice in the cavern wall. The water temperature<br />of the lake was a mild 68 degrees. Tim knew instantly that they had found<br />Graces Ocean. He went to fetch Grace immediately and told her to bring her<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />Mars suit and follow him. When they approached the air lock Tim put his Mars<br />suit back on and told Grace to do likewise. While they were putting their suits<br />on Tim asked Grace,“Do you remember asking me to enlarge the fish ponds<br />because you were expecting a shipment of Salt Water fish on the Mars Runner<br />when it docks in December?” “Of course I remember but what does this have to<br />do with..?” “I'll show you Tim interrupted.” With that they went through the<br />double doors of the air lock and Tim presented Grace with her with her Ocean.<br />The natural water temperature here is 68 degrees and I seem to remember that<br />on Earth they used to quote water temperatures in that range on the radio” “Yes<br />68 would be perfect.” “Great we should have this cavern sealed and<br />pressurized within the week. We can install a reverse osmosis system where<br />that water exits and use the output as household tap water. You can put your<br />salt solution into the lake and when the reverse osmosis system filters it out you<br />can put it back into the lake.<br />Luckily the floor was almost level with the tunnel so the drillers continued<br />on their way<br />October 8, 2108: The four fissures in what they were all referring to as<br />the Ocean cavern were sealed and a pressure test was run. One of the seals<br />leaked a little but was quickly repaired. The cavern was pressurized by the end<br />of the week.<br />October 9, 2108: Tunneling promptly began on the next long tunnel<br />another nine hundred foot span. The digging went fast and easy. The workers<br />never had to wear their Mars suits. Men were now working the tunnel around<br />the clock. They were gaining more than two feet per hour at times.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-69343362125794189462009-04-13T01:04:00.000-07:002009-04-13T01:04:00.359-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 20CHAPTER – Super Store opens for Business<br />Super Store opened on the first Sunday of June, 2108. There were six<br />hundred people in line when they opened their doors. They had put their<br />shelves up and stocked the store with all the select merchandise that they had<br />been able to transport on the one hundred pallets they had been allowed on the<br />ship.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />They opened the doors at 0900 all of the merchandise, every piece of it,<br />was in the hands of customers by 0930. People had just grabbed anything they<br />could get their hands on, it didn't matter whether it was something they could<br />use or not. With only three registers open it took until 1300 to get everyone<br />checked out. At that point there was no reason to remain open so they hung a<br />sign on the door and reconciled themselves to waiting for the next ship which<br />would be in August. All three Super Store employees went to work for the bank<br />on a temporary basis until August.<br />The following Sunday there was another giant swap meet in the business<br />district which had now become known as the square. Most of the merchandise<br />that had been purchased at Super Store was available for resale to the people<br />that actually needed the items for a slightly higher price of usually twice what<br />Super Store had sold it for. The swap meet also sold out in a few hours and<br />had to shut down.<br />Archy had wondered why there were so few people show up for church.<br />The church was open and operating now in the square with cement block<br />benches to accommodate one hundred worshipers. Archy put up a sign in front<br />of the church announcing an evening service to begin at 1900 hours. That<br />service was packed. Archy had successfully solicited twenty residents to form a<br />choir and chosen a choir director from among them. That evening the church<br />was packed and everyone enjoyed the choir and the country and western band<br />that accompanied them. Archy's leaning in the church was heavily toward lots<br />of hand clapping and gospel music. Everyone seemed to have a great time.<br />They particularly enjoyed Archy's preaching that was heavy on the shouting to<br />the lord and bible slapping and Hell, Fire and Brimstone rhetoric.<br />The church had to be doubled in size to accommodate the congregation.<br />Archy only wished that he was not obligated to The Company for the next ten<br />years so he could devote full time to his work as pastor.<br />June 20, 2108: Tim and Carter discussed this with Paul who agreed that<br />Archy was such a positive influence on the community that Carter and Paul<br />requested that be reassigned by The Company as the pastor of the church as<br />his full time work. After all they needed a full time pastor to conduct weddings,<br />baptisms, funerals and the many other duties that a pastor performed in the<br />community. Paul had already found out that the protestant pastor that The<br />Company was sending to Mars as Chaplain was an Episcopal priest so there<br />would be very little conflict between Archy and the new Protestant Chaplain.<br />Carter took it on himself and contacted the The Southern Baptist Theological<br />Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky who when they heard about Archy's ministry<br />and viewed a video of one of his services on Mars held a special ordination in<br />absentia ceremony and not only ordained Archy but gave him an honorary<br />Doctor of Divinity degree. Now Archibald Shrimp would a full time practicing<br />minister with his own church and congregation. On Mars he was called the<br />Chaplain.<br />While this had all been happening the small side of the new cavern had<br />been sealed and pressurized the large end of the cavern would just have to wait<br />for more equipment to arrive from Earth. Two wonderful discoveries were made<br />when the scientists could get into the cavern and examine it closely. There was<br />adequate geothermal energy in close proximity to provide power to several<br />large generators, maybe enough to power all of Utopia.<br />June 30, 2108: The second discovery was a vein of gold larger than any<br />vein that had ever been discovered on Earth, anywhere.<br />“The company is going to be very happy to hear about this discovery<br />Carter.” “Now maybe we will have something to send back to Earth instead of<br />everything coming this way.” “Better see if we have anyone with hard rock<br />mining experience and get them extracting that gold ore right away. I would like<br />to have as much as possible on hand to ship back when the next supply chip<br />gets here in August.<br />Tim went to Doris and had her scan the data base of employees and<br />picked out fifteen candidates who had claimed to have the skills that he was<br />looking for. He called each of them on his cell and ask them to meet him in the<br />small cavern that had just been tamed in one hour. Tim was the first one there<br />and looked around while he waited for the others. Shortly all fifteen had arrived<br />and he said “I would like to show you gentlemen something and then I would<br />like you to tell me what you think.” He lead them to the wall and pointed out the<br />vein. “Wow that is really something.” Tim just stood by and listened to their<br />ensuing conversation. It didn't take long for Tim to choose his foreman. One of<br />the men, Harold Dixon seemed to know a lot more than any of the others. The<br />other men were looking to him for answers. He had a relaxed posture and<br />attitude, was very knowledgeable and communicated his thoughts easily to the<br />others. “You men have just been reassigned to the mine crew. Please advise<br />your present crew chief's of the change. You can get together and decide what<br />all you will need to get started extracting that gold. Harold would you step over<br />here there is something I would like to ask you?” “Sure” Tim and Harold walked<br />about 50 feet away from the other men and Tim said “you seem to know quite a<br />bit about this mining business Harold just how much experience have you had?”<br />“I have been a hard rock miner all my life and my father before me spent his life<br />mining, my grandfather was a prospector. My family is from rural Nevada. The<br />mines are pretty well played out there so when this job came my wife and I<br />jumped at it.” “What is your educational background Harold?” “I have a BA in<br />Engineering from University of Nevada, Reno and a Masters in Mine<br />Engineering from Colorado School of Mines, in Golden, Colorado.” “I'm<br />impressed, you will be in charge of setting up this mine and supervising this<br />crew.<br />Make sure that the things these guys have put on the list they are<br />preparing are legitimate and then see if you can find enough of the things you<br />need in the supply yard to get started. There will be a ship arriving here in<br />August but it is too late to get anything on that ship. We should be getting two<br />ships in December and what you need besides what we already have here will<br />be on that ship.” If you can find enough to get started in the yard your crew can<br />start in the morning. You will probably be seeing a lot of me around here for a<br />while because among my other chores I am a drilling engineer and we will be<br />installing another generator about a mile over there.” Tim pointed toward the hot<br />spots. “Give me a call this evening and let me know if you want all the men that<br />are here or if you need more that are unskilled. These men here are the only<br />ones that claim to have any hard rock mine experience. I should be able to find<br />you some coal miners though if and when you need more men.”<br />June 30, 2108: The next morning Tim allowed his assistant to hold the<br />muster while Tim got his drilling crew together and began to pillage the supply<br />yard. They found better drilling equipment than they had used on their first hole<br />in The Company cavern. He then inspected the new generator and found it was<br />almost twice the output of their present generator. He told the men to gather all<br />the equipment that they needed and meet him at the hot spot when the<br />equipment was all in place. These were the men that Tim had worked with on<br />the previous hole and they all pretty much knew what they were doing. They<br />didn't need much direct supervision and Tim already knew which of them would<br />be best qualified to be in charge of the project when he wasn't there. It took<br />them all day to find and move the equipment so they didn't need to call Tim any<br />more that day.<br />Tim then looked up the air quality control supervisor who was one of the<br />Government scientists. “Where do we stand on getting the new atmosphere<br />equipment installed at the Utility cavern?” Tim ask. “So far so good, I was<br />relieved to find that we had everything that we need and it is being moved to the<br />Utility cavern now.” The small new cavern that had just been opened had been<br />dubbed, the Utility cavern because of the generator and atmosphere equipment<br />being installed there. “We should have the new equipment running in a week or<br />so. Then there will be no question that we will have plenty of atmosphere so we<br />can open the big half of that cavern.” “Crews were already working on the<br />surface sealing the fissures on the big half so it looked like they could open it up<br />within the next week.<br />July 1, 2108: tunneling was coming along great on the tunnel to the third<br />new cavern. It would be a 580 footer and the crews were already in ten to<br />twelve feet and another crew was already installing the air lock. Every evening<br />the spa in the paradise cavern was packed with people enjoying the hot water.<br />Some were even swimming in the warm river. The park had turned out to be<br />very popular with the population of Mars.<br />Tim could hardly wait to get Big Lake Cavern opened, and the lake<br />stocked with fish. Tim had no idea how they would manage to build boats or<br />rafts to use on the lake but he was sure someone would come up with<br />something. Tim made a note to himself to find out about getting some electric<br />outboard motors, they could always find some Styrofoam or empty drums or<br />something that would float.<br />The tunnel enlarging crews had started work on enlarging the tunnel<br />from the Paradise cavern to the Utility cavern.<br />Tim, Carla, Juan and Lupe once again started playing shuffleboard in the<br />evenings. They had no trouble at all finding an open court.<br />July 4, 2108: Tim and Carla attended the Saturday night dance and<br />found a table. They danced a couple times while they sipped a cup of tea.<br />Then Carla said she would like some air so they stepped out. No one had yet<br />figured out how to hold fireworks on Mars, and they didn't have any anyway so<br />it didn't seem much like the 4th of July.<br />Tim remembered something that he wanted to get from home so he went<br />around the mess hall to go and retrieve it. He was shocked to see about thirty<br />people sitting around in folding chairs pulled up to folding tables all smoking<br />clay pipes. They could hear the music just fine from there and some of them<br />had laid down their pipes to go and dance. Tim spotted one of the men he new<br />in the crowd and went over and joined him. The man casually acknowledged<br />Tim then passed him his lit clay pipe. There was no doubt at all what the pipe<br />contained. Tim respectfully declined but gave the man a big smile. Nothing<br />had to be said.<br />On Sunday, after church Tim called Paul and Carter to request a quick<br />meeting. He related to them what he had observed behind the dining room on<br />Saturday evening. “We already know all about it Tim, and we have figured out<br />how to handle it.” “How is that,” Tim ask. “By doing nothing,” Carter responded.<br />If I caught a member of management smoking in public I would ask him not to<br />do that any more, but as long as we don't have a problem during the work<br />week, I see no harm in it. After all pot is now completely legal in twelve states.<br />So far it has not occurred to the Government or The Company to address the<br />issue. We have had a chat with Abner and Darwin over at the farm and they<br />assure me they are giving the stuff away to anyone who comes by and asks for<br />it. Sometimes they say that a person will slip them some small amount of<br />money for their trouble but they never ask for anything in return. Since alcohol<br />is not available this pot is the only thing people have to help them relax and<br />have a good time at the Saturday night dance and other such gatherings. If<br />anyone wants to smoke it in their own home we have no objection to that either.<br />Paul and I both agree that everyone would be appreciative if we never<br />brought the issue up. On the other hand if you ever caught anyone smoking on<br />the job you should probably advise them that what they are doing is not allowed<br />and if they persist they could ruin a good thing for everybody.” “That is all I<br />wanted to know, and I have no objection to the non policy,” said Tim. “I will see<br />to it that Rusty doesn't do a story about it on TV and that everybody gets the<br />word they should not smoke in public when there is a ship in port. I think those<br />should be reasonable restraints, after all we don't want word of this non policy<br />getting back to Earth.” Tim added.<br />July 10, 2108: The two gentlemen who had volunteered to produce<br />alcohol had harvested their first crop of corn and finished making their first<br />batch of booze. They only produced about twenty gallons and had already<br />consumed quite a bit of that themselves. No one had planted more corn.<br />Abner had corn growing at the farm but it had not been earmarked for making<br />booze. It appeared that our booze project had failed. Tim had the two men<br />take the remaining booze over to the farm where Abner had agreed to store it<br />until next New years Eve when everyone would get one drink as far as it went.<br />July 1, 2108: Two of the Government workers who had remained on<br />Mars as private citizens had been racking their brain to figure out what kind of<br />business they wanted to go into. They finally hit on the idea of starting a winery<br />and brewery. Ironically their names were Austin Viner and Byron Suds. They<br />had ordered the plants and grow lights and other equipment that they needed to<br />produce grapes, hops, barley and yeast and were working at Burger Boy's until<br />their stuff came in in December. It had cost them almost a million dollars but<br />they were sure they had made a good investment.<br />July 6, 2108: Tim went to see Abner that morning to tell him that there<br />was now plenty of room for his orchards. Tim had staked off 40 acres of land in<br />Big Lake cavern. Tim asked Abner to accompany him to Big Lake. The two of<br />them walked the area reserved for the Orchards. “Great said Abner now all I<br />will need is topsoil and grow lights to cover 40 acres of land.” Abner had been<br />mixing local nitrates with manure from the farm and Martian soil for some time.<br />He had quite a pile of it. “You see this Tim,” Abner said when they returned to<br />the farm. If I mix this soil with the contents of my compost pile, then plant each<br />tree in a 3X3X3 hole filled with this mixture I should have a good start at<br />growing our orchard. I can dig the holes now and fill as many of them as<br />possible with this soil I will start another soil conversion pile at the Orchard.<br />Once you get the grow lights in I will be able to start transplanting these little<br />trees.<br />August 12, 2108: Mars Supply One docked. They had brought only one<br />hundred new construction workers but they had brought two hundred new civil<br />service employees. Mars now had the staff for the public services that they<br />needed. They got 150 new clerical people, one judge, two attorneys, a Public<br />Records Librarian, and even three police officers. One of the clericals was an<br />election specialist and would work in that capacity full time as needed if and<br />when there were to be an election. In the meantime she was assigned to<br />computer input work. One of the new clerical workers was assigned as Tim's<br />secretary. Tim had been taking up too much of Doris time lately with his<br />projects that had nothing to do with her data base work. Tim had accumulated<br />a ton of work for that he had been putting off.<br />Among the cargo items that arrived were1,000 new grow lights. Tim<br />already knew they would be on this flight because he had told The Company<br />that the trees they had sent would be of no value without them so they had<br />agreed to put them on the next ship out.<br />The ship had also brought ten thousand board foot of utility grade ply<br />wood in various thicknesses. There were the usual food supplies and among<br />other things, lots of odds and ends they desperately needed.<br />Aside from personnel they got the 125 golf carts they had requested.<br />They came all dismantled and crated but assembling them would not be a<br />problem. Everyone was thrilled that they got two hundred thousand fingerling<br />catfish, cutthroat, bluegill, and crappy. Before the ship arrived screens had<br />been installed on the two warm rivers to keep the young fish from swimming off<br />into uncharted regions of Mars. There was a lady ichthyologist that said she<br />had been sent along to care for the fish. She had enough fish food to keep<br />them growing for three months and knew how to process table scraps into fish<br />food. There was the parts necessary to construct a new large geothermal<br />generator, another unit would arrive in December when Mars Runner made it's<br />first arrival. One great thing that came in was five thousand cubic feet of<br />hardwood. It was in various sizes but wood was something they had plenty of<br />uses for. There was cargo for the farm as well, Abner had ordered and now had<br />received twenty million Earth worms. Super Store even received another<br />hundred pallets of merchandise. Tim laughed, now they will be able to open for<br />business for another one day stand.<br />Tim was wrong, this time around it took Super Store into the second day<br />to sell everything that they had.<br />Ever since Tim had arrived the new arrival's had all had housing waiting<br />for them. The previous crop of new arrivals and this group had rooms in row<br />houses, They had started using common walls between the units instead of<br />building individual houses as they had done at first. They would build another<br />row of rooms that shared a common wall at the rear of the room. The<br />completed units resembled motels. The buildings were then given a number<br />followed by a dash and then a letter, as in 354-C. There were 20 units to each<br />building so they would letters up to T.<br />Because of the irregular work hours the kitchens and dining rooms had<br />started staying open 16 hours per day. They would just transition from<br />breakfast to lunch to dinner and people could eat any time they pleased. The<br />kitchens had started offering more choices of food and serving buffet style<br />rather than just serving everyone that came through the line the same meal.<br />The Government kitchen always offered a different food selection than The<br />Company kitchen. Residents were free to eat in either dining room. For the<br />most part the vegetables were fresh from the garden and both dining halls<br />usually offered a salad bar, and a choice of dressings. More cooks and kitchen<br />help were arriving on each ship so they had plenty of help in the kitchens. In<br />addition to these changes it took standing in line for 20 minutes or more to get a<br />Big Boy and fries.<br />Paul mostly but Tim and Carter to a degree had dreaded the day that<br />they would have police officers on duty in the community. Now they had a U.S.<br />Marshal and two deputies. Paul summoned them to visit his office. In about ten<br />minutes three young women entered the office. “Are you the police officers?“<br />Carter asked. “Yeah, not what you expected, huh?” “No, not exactly,” Tim<br />answered. “Just what do you ladies expect to contribute to this community?”<br />Paul inquired. The older of the three spoke for the three of them. “ Why don't<br />we introduce ourselves, I am Deputy United States Marshal Constance Raul,<br />my two associates here are Marlene Dotson and Pamela Justin, they are also<br />Deputy United States Marshals but I am in charge because my pay grade is<br />higher than theirs and I have been with the Marshal Service longer. You<br />gentlemen are?” I am Paul Silverman, the facility director and this is Carter<br />Fredrick, the Mars Colony, Inc. manager and Tim Erkin, the construction<br />superintendent. The titles may be a little misleading but the three of us pretty<br />much run the facility. “Now as I previously asked, Just what do you ladies<br />expect to contribute to this community?”<br />“We will have a lot to do,” Constance replied. “One thing will to be to find<br />out why you have never had a reportable crime in the twelve years since the<br />colony was established. Another thing is to be the administrative arm of the<br />court system once that is established. Another would be to investigate any<br />crime that does occur, and believe me, it is inevitable that sooner or later as<br />your population grows you will have some crime. You gentlemen could<br />probably apprehended a suspect but there are occasions when you wouldn't<br />know who to apprehend. I know we are young women but between us we have<br />had over 27 years of training beyond high school, in college and in practicing<br />our professions. Any of us would be qualified to work in a crime lab or work as<br />a crime scene investigator on Earth. If, as you apparently believe, it turns out<br />that we have nothing to do then we could always ask you for permission to take<br />jobs on the young economy that we hear is emerging on Mars. That way we<br />would always still be available if you needed us to do the job we were sent here<br />to do.” All three of the men in the room were impressed. “I guess you don't<br />need any advise from us so just go about your business. Carter put in, “We<br />have constructed a court house of sorts, but like you said we have never had a<br />crime, we have never had a civil action filed either. You will find your offices in<br />the court house along side the one cell jail that we constructed. There is also a<br />bailiffs office, judges chambers and a court room with a jury box and everything.<br />One of our people will be in touch with you to find out if you need anything. The<br />girls left and Tim looked at Carter and Paul and just shrugged.<br />As it turned out, not only were the three U.S. Marshals all female but so<br />was the judge and the two attorney's. One of the attorney's was the prosecutor<br />and one the public defender. The bailiff, however turned out to be a large black<br />man that appeared capable of putting down any courtroom difficulties.<br />“This is great, “said Paul. “ we now have a whole legal system in place<br />but we have no laws to enforce or to charge anyone of violating.“ They then<br />summoned the judge, Nancy Whalen to the office along with the two attorney's.<br />Paul posed that same question to them. “Oh, but there are laws a plenty. This<br />colony is officially a territory of the United States, and laws have been<br />accumulating on the books that govern U.S. Territories for the last four hundred<br />years, I have over thirty seven books that I brought from the states that are just<br />crammed full of those laws. These two attorney's here each have a copy of all<br />the same books that I have. With email we have access to a lot of other laws<br />that are available from the national law library and from the library of congress.<br />“Your local assembly, whatever you call it needs to pass what would be<br />called county ordinances on earth. How do you get by without them?” “Simple,”<br />said Carter when there is a good reason that people should not do something<br />we just tell them not to do it and they don't do it. It works the same as when you<br />have something you want them to do we just tell them to do it but we always<br />give them a reason. If we don't have a good reason we don't bug them, it works<br />for us.”<br />August 13, 2108: Because of having received advance instructions four<br />large ponds had been dug, cemented and cured. The ponds were adjacent to<br />the warm river across from the farm in The Company cavern. They were ready<br />to receive the paint that Grace, the new fish farmer had brought from Earth.<br />The day after they got the paint the crew that had been assigned to help Grace,<br />set up painted the four ponds. The paint was quick drying and sat up in an<br />hour. The workers scrubbed the new paint then painted over that with a<br />nutritional gel resembling bottom and sides of an established pond. By noon<br />they opened the four trap doors allowing river water to pour into the ponds.<br />Fifty thousand young fish were dumped from the tanks they had lived in on the<br />ship into the ponds. Each breed had their own separate pond. Several<br />hundred fish in each pond floated to the surface. They had died en route to<br />Mars. The dead fish were quickly removed. Some of the young fish began to<br />swim a little but others just laid there, their gills moving as if they were gasping<br />for air. Grace, the fish farmer put a little food into each tank. The catfish food<br />sank to the bottom while the blue gill, trout and crappie food floated on the<br />surface. Thank you folks so much for all your help but there is nothing more<br />you can do at the moment. You may return to your other duties. One young<br />woman stayed behind when the others left. If it is all the same to Mam I would<br />like to relieve you while you go and take care of your housing needs and put<br />your things away. After that you can go and have lunch and come back when<br />you are all squared away. Just tell me what to do while you are away and I will<br />see to it. “ What is your name hon,” Grace asked. “I am Helen, Mam.” “I just<br />think I may take you up on that offer Helen.” Grace said, “At this point there is<br />really nothing to do, just keep an eye on the fish and scoop away any that die<br />and float to the top. I will be back in a couple hours.”<br />Because the bureaucracy was in such a turmoil because of all the new<br />arrivals it took Grace closer to four hours before she found her house, found her<br />luggage and had lunch. When she returned Helen was still there, the net in her<br />hand and she was carefully scooping away the young fish that had expired.<br />The worms that Abner had received at the farm were introduced into the<br />crops and the orchards and to his compost piles. A million or so Earth worms<br />were given to Grace because she could use them in her own compost operation<br />that was part of her making fish food out of garbage.<br />As the days passed Grace had little difficulty in caring for her fish and still<br />had time to go to her meals and take care of her personal matters and check on<br />the fish as often as they needed checking on. Every afternoon Helen would<br />drop by after work and just look at the fish. Sometimes Grace would return to<br />check on the fish and Helen would be there. Sometimes Helen would drop by<br />while Grace was working with the fish. Would you tell me about these catfish,<br />Grace?” Helen ask one evening. “Sure Helen, these fish grow fast, they were<br />barely hatched when the ship had left Earth but already some of these guys are<br />six Inches long. A catfish in ideal warm water conditions can grow to over two<br />pounds in one year. For the cost of production catfish easily out perform all<br />other fish. Crappie (pronounced Croppy) are prolific and grow to about two<br />pounds in 18 months or so. They are good eating with lots of meat but you<br />have a lot of bones to contend with. A lot of pet food manufacturers use crappy<br />in their products but they grind them up so the bones won't harm the pets.<br />Trout and blue gill are fun fish, they are fun to catch and they are fun to watch,<br />but catfish that is where the meat is. Of course blue gill are a favorite of people<br />who like to fillet small fish and fry them crispy in a pan. Trout really isn't one fish<br />but a family of fish, we have several varieties in this pond and they are also<br />good pan fish and the larger varieties are good baked. There is a lot more but if<br />you are curious why don't you look them up on the Internet and learn all about<br />them. The fish that we chose to try first on Mars were chosen because they are<br />hearty fish that we thought might make the journey to Mars and still be alive and<br />they are fish that we thought might be most likely to adapt best to the<br />environment here. If I can find the right location I am going to try and create a<br />salt water lake and have them send up some salt water fish to try here.” “Within<br />eight or nine months we should be eating fish regularly and fishing should be a<br />popular sport on Mars within a year.” “I am just taken with these fish Grace I<br />would love to work with them if the time ever comes that you need an assistant<br />please consider me for the job. My boyfriend, Darwin got a job on the farm over<br />there caring for the animals. Darwin and I are planning on getting married soon<br />and it would be great if he cared for animals and I cared for fish.”<br />August 22, 2108: Grace had inspected Big Lake and had inspected the<br />warm river that flowed out of the spa in Paradise and would soon be moving a<br />couple thousand trout to Big Lake and a Thousand or so catfish to the warm<br />river. She told Tim the next time she saw him that she would need a crew for a<br />few hours at sometime in the next week. In the meantime she filled a couple<br />tanks with water from the two places and put a couple fish in each tank. The<br />Trout did well in the water from Big Lake and the catfish did just fine in the water<br />from Warm River. The next week she moved one thousand trout to Big Lake<br />and one thousand Catfish to Warm River. They both thrived on a minimum<br />amount of food made from kitchen garbage. The catfish in warm river were<br />soon larger than the catfish in the pond. The trout in the lake out performed the<br />fish in the pond also. On the second week in the pond Grace was finding no<br />more dead fish a day than she would have expected to find on Earth. Grace<br />opened each trap door long enough to let a few fish out into the river from each<br />species. Then she started feeding them the food that she made from table<br />scraps, they also thrived. Grace had also sewn thousands of Earth worms<br />along the banks of the lakes and rivers and made sure there was enough for<br />them to eat. Within a month Grace had transplanted more fish to Big lake,<br />crappie, blue gill and some more trout. Then she opened the gate to the ponds<br />and left them open. Some of the fish still preferred the pond but most chose the<br />river and the warm lake. The catfish seemed very fond of the warm lake. The<br />water in Big Lake stayed a little warmer than most native Mars water because<br />of all the heat being generated in the Utility cavern.<br />September 13, 2108: For two weeks Tim had three crews assembling,<br />charging and testing golf carts. Tim himself got the first one off the assembly<br />line. He could now scurry from place to place quickly. When the carts were all<br />assembled they were put in a motor pool. Anyone who needed a cart for work<br />just took one. When they were done with it they drove it back and parked it in<br />the motor pool. If the yellow light was on they took it to the charging station and<br />plugged it in. The lithium ion gel batteries that they used were good for about<br />two hundred fifty miles or ten days which ever came first, before the yellow light<br />would come on. There were never more than ten of the carts on the charger<br />overnight. The surface carts could be used in the caverns but the cavern carts<br />could not be used on the surface. The difference being that the surface carts<br />had big balloon tires that would not sink into the dust that was on much of the<br />surface. People working on the surface would just ride a cart over to the<br />pedestrian elevator, go up to the surface and use the cart while they were<br />working then return it in the evening. After five PM people would take a cart<br />anytime they were going out of the original complex of the Government cavern<br />and The Company cavern a lot of them could be found at the spa on any given<br />evening. People could be found lining the banks of Big Lake, near the feeding<br />area and lining the banks of Warm River and the river and Lake in The<br />Company cavern every evening spotting fish.<br />September 20, 2108: The gold mine had proved to be very productive.<br />They were extracting not only pure gold from the vein but the ore on each side<br />of the vein for several feet proved to be very rich in gold. They did not even<br />attempt to smelt the ore on Mars. They did jury rig a crusher that worked well<br />so they were just crushing everything produced in the mine. They made<br />cement boxes that were filled with the gold and ore then sealed with cement,<br />and cured before being loaded on the empty ships and sent back to Earth. The<br />only way to get at the contents was to destroy the cement box. The boxes were<br />not so heavy that two strong men on Mars could handle one box which weighed<br />about one hundred lbs on Mars but weighed almost three hundred lbs on the<br />ships and on Earth. These boxes had to be unloaded back on Earth with fork<br />lifts. As far as anyone ever knew no gold had ever been pilfered.<br />September 23, 2108: The tunnel crew had a hard time digging the tunnel<br />leading out of Big Lake and the Utility cavern. They ran into hard rock so went<br />and consulted the mine foreman. He examined the rock and decided it was all<br />part of the same vein they were pursuing from the Utility cavern. He moved the<br />mine crew to the tunnel and they removed the 40 foot wide vein of gold bearing<br />quartz before the tunnel digging crew could continue. The hard rock had finally<br />been removed and the tunnel crew resumed work on September 27, 2108.<br />New tunneling equipment had arrived on August 12, 2108 and once<br />tunneling had resumed it went much faster.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-71644056002066273922009-04-12T01:03:00.000-07:002009-04-12T01:03:00.784-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 19CHAPTER – Big Lake and the Utility Cavern<br />June 6, 2108 : The Tunnel Crew finally broke through to the second new<br />cavern. It was huge. It was not as spectacular as Paradise but it was larger<br />than all their previous caverns combined. Almost thirty square miles. It was<br />two caverns actually. left as they broke through then a narrow opening,<br />The tunneling crew had only to don their Mars suits for the last four<br />hours before breakthrough. The cavern had one nice feature, the floor was<br />almost flat. They could tell from the light filtering in that it as well was a<br />beautiful cavern The walls almost had a glow to them, they kind of glistened<br />when a light was shined on them. A stream, almost a river entered at one side<br />then pooled into a lake that was quite large near the center of the larger part of<br />the cavern, probably about five square miles before turning once again into a<br />stream and flowing out the other side of the cavern. This cavern was slightly<br />higher in elevation at floor level than Paradise had been.<br />Tim and Carter were both on hand for the breakthrough, accompanied by<br />a lighting crew who installed temporary lights in both the large and the small<br />part of the cavern.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />The large part had a very high ceiling and very few fissures to the<br />surface so they knew they were under a mountain. Had the ceiling been this<br />high on flat land it would only have been a pit. The scientists speculated that<br />this large cavern had been formed by a large meteor striking the surface maybe<br />a billion years in the past. Their guess was that the meteor had also formed the<br />lake that was very deep and filled with crystal blue water. Most of the scientists<br />from the Government cavern were pouring into the cavern taking soil samples<br />and water samples for testing. It was obvious that this cavern had been formed<br />differently than the others they had come across. Tim and Carter agreed that<br />this would be the most comfortable cavern they had found and this is where<br />they should probably be working out of once they had tamed it.<br />Tim and Carter briefly discussed running an enclosed tunnel through this<br />monster cavern but withheld making any decision until they knew more.<br />They didn't notice, since they were wearing Mars suits but the<br />temperature had risen to 75 degrees in the small side and 72 in the large side.<br />The scientists discovered that right away though. “My guess is that you are<br />going to find beautiful hot spots in the small side.” “Yeah, we have enough<br />equipment to tame this cavern. There is water, maybe we should tame it, we<br />will know more in a couple days after we have had a chance explore the small<br />side. We have been so enthralled with the big side that we have paid little<br />attention to the small side.”<br />Carter and Paul sent a joint report to Earth telling them what they had<br />found. They were developing quite a list of things they needed to develop these<br />new caverns. It would take several days just to explore the new caverns.<br />The list grew longer and now Included a request for more bureaucrats.<br />The shortage of clerical help is becoming critical. We need more clerks<br />everywhere on the facility and once we get our legal system in place we will<br />need Judges, and all the other people that are needed to run the court system.<br />We will need at least one prosecuting attorney and one public defender and a<br />lot more more clerks. In the public records department we have only one part<br />time clerk now, we need a full time staff. We need at least three police officers,<br />we need a dispatcher, We need everything that we would have to have to hold<br />an election. Maybe on the next ship we could skip the construction workers and<br />send the people we need to convert this work camp into a small city.<br />They did find several hot spots in the newly opened small side of the new<br />cavern. There was a warm stream running across the cavern. It was obvious<br />that this would be the place to house their utilities so Tim put crews to work<br />installing the new generator, and the atmosphere making equipment. The<br />Government atmosphere control people had activated one of the backup<br />atmosphere control units when they opened Paradise. They would now need to<br />activate the remaining two. There were six more units scheduled for delivery in<br />September. Tim requested that the two remaining back up atmosphere<br />systems be installed in the Utility cavern so they could go ahead and pressurize<br />the Big Lake cavern.<br />June 15, 2108: Big Lake cavern was pressurized.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-18705091751024946572009-04-11T01:01:00.000-07:002009-04-11T01:01:00.392-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 18CHAPTER – Other Nations want in<br />June 1, 2008<br />Meanwhile back on Earth things were happening that could effect the<br />Mars Project. “Mr. President, the Chinese Ambassador.” “Welcome, Mr.<br />Ambassador, let's have a seat on the couch over here and you can tell me to<br />what I owe the honor of your visit. Could I offer you something to drink?” “Oh,<br />cut the crap, Chet, you know why I am here, We want in on the Mars program.<br />We want our own colony with our own people running it.” “So, Ambassador Jing,<br />why are you telling me this?” We make no claim on the planet Mars, only to the<br />parts of Mars that we have opened up, and developed.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />You are free to develop your own program any way you want so long as<br />you don't violate any of our territorial claims. As you know we claim any cavern<br />that we have pressurized and populated and any cavern, any part of which is<br />within two hundred Earth miles of any cavern we have pressurized and<br />populated.” “We are aware of that Chet but what we are seeking is your help in<br />developing our program. We want you to help us in all fields of development to<br />establish a Chinese presence on the planet that does not violate any of your<br />territorial claims.” “We would be happy to oblige you Jing but we have one<br />stipulation that you must agree to in order to gain our full support.” “What is that<br />Chet?” “That we have the right to approve any people that you want to send to<br />Mars either on our space craft now or your own space craft any time in the<br />future. You know very well that anyone you send must be of good character<br />and be able to pass a fluency test in the English Language and that you<br />acknowledge that the English language is the official language of Mars and that<br />all communications on Mars, to Mars or from Mars be in English. You know<br />how many difficulties that this planet has had because of language differences,<br />we just want to prevent that happening on Mars. If you agree to that then we<br />will share all that we know about Mars with you, We will train your people for a<br />price, we will transport your people, for a price and will assist you in any other<br />way that we can in establishing your colony on the planet. We will also allow<br />your people to visit our facilities at any time.” “That is where the rub comes in<br />Chet, we are Chinese and proud of it. Sure I am fluent in English but I doubt<br />that I could pass your fluency examination. The kinds of people that have the<br />skills for this kind of endeavor certainly could not pass. Also I am not so sure<br />that my Government would go along with English being the official language of<br />Mars.” Then Mr. Ambassador I suggest that you start from scratch and develop<br />your own program on your own terms. I am sorry Jing but I saw you without an<br />appointment because I was given to understand that you had only a couple of<br />quick questions and now I need to see my regularly scheduled guest, the<br />ambassador from Japan.”<br />President Harford did the same song and dance that he had just done<br />with the Chinese Ambassador. The Japanese Ambassador also left in a huff.<br />The President then buzzed his secretary. Get the press secretary in here right<br />away. “ Flint I have a job for you.. Get a recording of my last to conversations<br />from my secretary, listen to them then make up a position paper expressing<br />those tenants and see to it that all of the nations on Earth that might be in a<br />position to make a similar request get a copy. Also make sure that the Speaker<br />and the Sennett Majority leader each get a copy along with a note that I would<br />like to be able to sign this position into legislation. You can have the legislation<br />drafted for them it will make the job easier. I am sure that we have the backing<br />of both sides of the Isle on this one so it will be good for relations. Tell them<br />they can attach it to the next bill they pass unless think it is a bill that I might<br />want to veto.”<br />Two weeks passed and so did the bill. Then the President received a<br />visit from four different ambassadors at one time. They represented<br />respectively The UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.<br />“Mr. President I am expressing the sentiments of all four of us and our<br />countries when I say that we very much approve of your position that English<br />only should be spoken on Mars and that any candidate that is sent should be<br />subject to your approval.” “Our four nations have met on this matter and we<br />would like to join the Mars program. Here is what we would like to offer. We<br />are willing to reimburse the United States for 40% of everything that you have<br />already spent on the Mars program over the last twelve years. We would like<br />to continue to reimburse the United States 40% of everything that you spend in<br />future years, but we would like to provide candidates for your approval of all<br />future colonists that are sent to Mars by either the United States Government or<br />sent by Mars Colony, Inc. until the population of Mars is 40% from our four<br />countries then we would like for 40% of all future colonists to be chosen by you<br />from candidates that we provide to you. When you breakthrough into Utopia we<br />would like for 40,000 of the first 100,000 people to reside in Utopia to be<br />selected from candidates that we provide to you. Beyond that we would all<br />caverns developed in future years be allocated as follows, any cavern with a<br />floor space of more than one hundred square miles be jointly populated. And<br />that all smaller caverns be allocated so that Australia gets ten % of them, New<br />Zealand gets ten percent, Canada gets ten percent and that the UK gets ten<br />percent as our own domains. The United States gets sixty percent.”<br />“That is very interesting but you are aware that I personally do not have<br />the authority to accept or decline your offer. What I suggest is that you<br />gentlemen sit down with our representatives who will be chosen from the<br />administration as well as from the House and the Senate and hammer out a<br />deal that we can all live with. There is one thing that I can tell you right now and<br />it is unofficial. There are certain guidelines that we use to select our<br />candidates, these rules fly in the face of some of our own civil rights legislation<br />but we have been getting away with it so far.<br />1.We do not take race into account.<br />2. We select equal numbers of men and women.<br />3. And here it gets a little sticky, we do not accept any candidate with<br />homosexual tendencies, we feel it would not be accepted by our people who<br />presently reside on Mars.<br />4.This one is really sticky we have not as yet selected a candidate<br />outside of the following, Christians of any denomination, Jews, Agnostics and<br />Atheists. We just don't want any religious conflicts. So far we have not<br />selected any professed Atheists, but we do have a few Agnostics. None of the<br />people that we have selected have any real strong religious feelings at all.<br />Next, we have been requested by the colony to provide them with Catholic and<br />Protestant Chaplains and at least one Rabbi. These people and their<br />necessary equipment have already been selected and will depart on the next<br />flight. Beyond that we would accept any chaplain candidates that you care to<br />nominate but those would be sent at your expense.<br />5.Frankly I don't think congress is going to go for your deal about<br />separate domains. Here is what I think you will end up with. After you<br />reimburse the United States for 40% of what we have spent so far you will be<br />allowed to send 50% of all future candidates until you reach parity then you will<br />be allowed 40%. You must also be aware that we have a small private sector<br />emerging on Mars. These people travel as paid passengers on our ships. We<br />presently charge five hundred thousand dollars dollars for the trip from Earth to<br />Mars and one hundred thousand dollars for a return flight or $550,000.00 for a<br />round trip ticket. We have just launched a new space ship we christened Mars<br />Runner. It is as large as our two other ships combined. Mars Runner belongs<br />entirely to the United States. We have sold our interest in the other two ships<br />Mars Supply One and Mars Supply Two to Mars Colony, Inc. but the United<br />States has retained control of who The Company hauls up to Mars and what<br />cargo they carry. You will have to negotiate for what cargo rights, business<br />rights, property ownership rights you will be entitled to on Mars. All real estate<br />other than what we call the Government cavern is owned by the company.<br />They will be free to develop it any way they please. They have agreed that the<br />United States share in the proceeds of any sales or leases of real estate. Only<br />residents of Mars are eligible to own real estate on Mars but corporations in<br />good standing are allowed to lease real estate.<br />6.So far we have no laws on Mars but the community is working on a<br />criminal and civil code at this time. Mars presently has the status of a U.S.<br />Protectorate. Common laws that apply to all Protectorates apply to Mars.<br />7.We have no civil or criminal courts on Mars but they are working on<br />that. We have not surveyed any real estate on Mars.<br />8.We have never had a crime committed on Mars and it is a good thing<br />because we have no police on Mars.<br />9.So far we have a private ownership bank chartered by two citizens of<br />Mars who were United States Civil Service Employees who finished their<br />employment contracts with the government. They have been in operation for<br />several months and are affiliated with City Bank in the United States. We would<br />not want to see any other banks on Mars until the population exceeds 30,000.<br />10.Burger Boy's has opened a restaurant outlet on Mars and Super Store<br />should be open within a matter of Days with a temporary store pending the<br />development of Utopia where they have a franchise to open one store for every<br />40,000 population. All other business fields are wide open.<br />These things also you need to take into consideration when you are<br />negotiating with our people. Don't be fooled by congress, Mars Colony, Inc.<br />has the hammer and they are the ones that will ultimately call the shots.<br />You would probably save yourselves a lot of red tape if you negotiated<br />directly with Mars Colony, Inc. and eliminated the middleman. Congress will<br />probably legislate in favor of any deal you strike on future development, land<br />use, business, etc. Congress will be more interested in some of the social<br />issues we discussed.”<br />“Mr. President, do you think we could”. “Hold it right there, this is not a<br />negotiation, I just gave you some pointers, save your negotiating for the big<br />shots. Sorry but I have another appointment waiting. I wish you all the best of<br />luck.”<br />They negotiated for almost a year and ended up with a deal that closely<br />resembled the deal that the President had outlined when they talked to him in<br />his office.<br />They also acknowledged that there was a distinct possibility that if the<br />Mars colony applied for statehood at some future date, when they were ready<br />the application would probably be favorably received and that if that happened<br />all the residents of Mars would either be admitted as Citizens of the United<br />States or would be granted Green Card, resident worker status.<br />They didn't care much for that clause and it had never occurred to them<br />that what the United States had planned for Mars was the eventual doubling of<br />the size of the Continental United States and adding as many as three hundred<br />million new citizens. Needless to say the UK consortium eventually lost interest<br />in the deal.<br />“Why give those blokes our best and brightest, the Prime Minister Said.”<br />Mars Colony, Inc. did start placing recruitment ads on the internet<br />soliciting applicants from those four countries.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-33016244881054448622009-04-10T00:59:00.000-07:002009-04-10T00:59:00.238-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 17CHAPTER – Mars Supply Two Docks<br />May 22, 2108: The next ship arrived, Thelma and Walter announced<br />their retirement on Rusty's nightly news show and announced that Carter<br />Fredrick would be taking Thelma's place and that Paul Silverman would be<br />replacing Walter Potts, as Facility Director .<br />That didn't set well with Tim, “I am the new Superintendent of<br />Construction and Paul is the new Facility Director and we are in cahoots on a<br />slightly shady business deal. We will never speak to Paul of this deal again.<br />We will just take our money out of the Swiss account in periodic small amounts<br />and forget I ever found those damned rocks, Carla.”<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />Tim, Carla Paul and Carter greeted the arrivals to Mars and gave them<br />the tour. On the tour Tim pointed out the entrance to Paradise. He told them<br />that this tunnel leads about eight hundred feet to the most beautiful cavern on<br />Mars. The cavern is so beautiful that we have decided to set it aside for<br />recreational purposes. Had you rather explore Paradise on your own after I<br />show you around or do you want to tour it now?” There was some mumbling<br />among the new arrivals but the consensus seems to have been that they would<br />prefer to explore Paradise on their own. They were more interested, at the<br />moment in seeing where they would be working, eating and sleeping.<br />There was only one real surprise passenger that arrived on the ship.<br />Rusty introduced him as, “Charles Rasmussen, do you prefer Charles or<br />Chuck?” Rusty asked. “I prefer Charley,” Rusty went on to tell the viewers that<br />Charley worked for Super Stores. He was sent as a site locater for a new<br />Super Store. “ I am here to pick out a site for a temporary store and to have an<br />early choice for a prime location in Cavern City when that becomes available.<br />We need the temporary location just to have a place to store all the<br />merchandise that is aboard this ship and that will be aboard all future ships.”<br />Once the store is open I will stay on as the manager. The only other Super<br />Store employees that came with me on this ship are two retail managers.<br />Additional Company employees will arrive on future flights. I would also like to<br />tell your viewers that Super Stores is hiring. I know there are not many people<br />on Mars looking for work but anyone who is nearing completion of their<br />commitment and wants to stay on the planet could do a lot worse than to figure<br />Super Stores into their future plans.”<br />“Within six to eight weeks we expect to have the temporary store open<br />for business. Before you even ask the answer is yes, Super Store is one of the<br />principals in Mars Colony, Inc. and before you ask the answer is No we do not<br />expect to make a profit from this store for many years, if ever. Just like Burger<br />Boy's we are here for the publicity and the good news for you folks our prices<br />will not exceed the highest price that we sell a given item for on Earth, plus, of<br />course an additional freight surcharge.”<br />“We are aware of the situation on Mars, that you have very few people,<br />you are making lots of money and you have no place to spend it. We are also<br />aware that your household's are lacking almost everything we sell.”<br />Rusty interviewed his guest and the two employees of Super Store for a<br />couple minutes then announced<br />“We have some more news that we just learned today. The U.S.<br />Government has just christened the new space ship Mars Runner. It is as large<br />as Mars Supply One and Mars Supply Two combined. It will cut travel time<br />between Earth and Mars by as much as 65%. It will start arriving here from<br />three to five times a year, with the first arrival scheduled for Late December of<br />this year. The two existing Mars Supply Ships have been sold to Mars Colony<br />Inc. and will be strictly commercial vessels from now on. We have just been<br />supplied with two new Shuttle aircraft bringing our fleet to five planes. We will<br />need that size fleet to unload Mars Runner when it gets here in December. The<br />next arrival of a Mars Supply ship will get in here around the middle of<br />September. So if you need to order anything from Earth do it now if you want it<br />in September, you still have a few days to get a rush order in.”<br />The Mars supply ships followed a policy of loading all priority items first<br />then loading the rest of the available space on the ship with wood. On Mars<br />there was always a critical shortage of wood of all kinds.<br />May 23, 2108: Tim visited the farm. The first crops had just been<br />harvested. The grow lights were all hung so that they could be raised or<br />lowered as needed for various crops. The four farmers were busy but Abner<br />took a few minutes to talk to Tim. There is one more thing I need Tim, Abner<br />said, “There is this a construction worker who we have been reluctant to<br />release because he has been of so much help to us, he still is, he cares for the<br />animals and takes that burden off of us so we can manage the crops. This is<br />the man, Darwin Stead, what are the chances of having Darwin pertinently<br />assigned to the farm?” Tim approved the reassignment on the spot. Then<br />Abner continued, “We will also need a couple more bedrooms and another<br />bathroom added to the house do Darwin can marry his finance, Helen, and<br />remain near the animals in his care.” “Sure,” Tim added, you can use the<br />people now assigned or Just show up at muster in the morning and I will assign<br />a crew for the room additions.”<br />As soon as Tim left Darwin and Abner went back into the Lab and lit up a<br />smoke, “See what did I tell you Darwin, it was a piece of cake. I knew you were<br />good people the minute you handed me that little box of seeds.”<br />May 24, 2108: Tim mentioned to Hal before the morning muster “We will<br />need to install the new generator in a hot area that has running water nearby. I<br />don't know of any other spots like that in The Company cavern or the<br />Government cavern. We have checked Paradise cavern for hot spots. There<br />are some that might work but their location would detract from the beauty of the<br />cavern and the recreation center. Worse case scenario we could locate the<br />new generator right beside the old one but then we would have the problem of<br />running the lines too far to get electricity where we need it.” Carter made his<br />decision, “ We are only using about thirty percent of the power we are now<br />generating. I want to take a look at the next cavern before doing anything. We<br />still have the original diesel generator on standby.”<br />Tim then told Hal, “The new ship arrival has brought atmosphere alarms<br />and emergency closures that would drop down when mounted in a tunnel if the<br />pressure at one end became lower than at the other end. People could still get<br />through these emergency closures but once the last person was safely through<br />the seal could be made permanent. A little atmosphere would still be lost but<br />the closures would give them time to install air locks while the air was still<br />breathable.” Hal promised that the new safety items would be installed within<br />the week.<br />The sensor on the atmosphere making apparatus constantly read the<br />atmosphere from various spots and adjusted the output accordingly. The<br />atmosphere in the caverns was not exactly like that of Earth because it was<br />basically just nitrogen and oxygen which meant that it could be made from<br />water and mineral nitrates. In the caverns it seemed to improve the<br />atmosphere to keep it a little higher in oxygen than on Earth. Earth's<br />atmosphere contains a little CO2 and so does the atmosphere in the caverns<br />because without any CO2 plants would not grow and photosynthesis would not<br />work and without nitrates plants could not grow. Growing plants require nitrates<br />in the soil to enable them to feed nitrogen into the atmosphere.<br />May 25, 2108: Tim held the afternoon muster. As promised the<br />Company had sent three hundred more workers on the Mars Supply Two. This<br />brought the total company workforce to over 900. The new men didn't show up<br />because Hal had given a week to get settled in. There were only about 50<br />workers that did show up but Tim just didn't have enough jobs lined up to keep<br />them all busy. There were no work orders on the board, Tim had checked. All<br />the other crews were already working on jobs they had been assigned.<br />There was another thousand fruit tree seedlings that needed to be<br />planted so lacking anything better to say Tim told half of the men to take the<br />seedlings over to the new orchard in the Paradise cavern which would<br />henceforth be referred to as the orchard. “See if Sue or Dan can put you to<br />work. “If Sue and Dan don't have any work for you check with Abner at the<br />farm, if he doesn't need you then you can check in with supply and see if they<br />have anything to keep you busy. The remaining twenty five men he sent to the<br />supply yard to help the supply yard crew. What we need, Tim thought to<br />himself is an administrative assistant to keep track of all these workers and all<br />the projects and jobs that need to be done.<br />Abner called Tim and told him that he could use twenty five or thirty<br />people the next day at the orchard to plant the new trees but they were not<br />ready to do anything with them yet. Abner said that the people had brought the<br />trees over to the orchard. We are rigging some temporary grow lights at the<br />orchard and preparing top soil, we have plenty of help for that. “Send the<br />planters tomorrow morning, Tim.”<br />May 29, 2108: All three hundred of the new workers showed up for the<br />morning muster along with 150 of the regular crews that had finished the<br />projects they had been working on. Once the workers had assembled Tim<br />asked if any of them had tree planting experience. Twenty people held up their<br />hands, will you people report to the orchard, they have some trees that need to<br />be planted. If anyone here knows of any jobs that need tending to you can go<br />and get to work now. In a day or two we will have some kind of a table of<br />organization working, it won't always be this disorganized. For today the rest of<br />you can go to the supply yard and help get that organized. If any of you see<br />anything constructive that needs to be done then feel free to do it today. You<br />new arrivals can plan on March 30, being your first regular workday. Hal just<br />stood there behind Tim and didn't say a word.<br />“I need two other volunteers this morning, one person that is<br />exceptionally skilled with computers to fill a systems administrator position that<br />we have open, the other is for a person to do data input. The person that we<br />want for data input should have extensive experience at data base<br />management. If you are interested in either of these positions please see me<br />after this muster. Tomorrow things will be different. After the majority of the<br />workers had all departed Tim told the tree planters to elect a leader then go to<br />the farm manager at the orchard and tell him that you are there to plant trees.<br />Tim felt a little embarrassed that this mornings muster had been so<br />disorganized.<br />Once the tree planters left to go to work nine people remained. Tim<br />turned his attention toward them. “I assume you nine are the ones interested in<br />the computer jobs.” They all nodded their heads in assent. “Lets go over to the<br />dining room and get a cup,” Tim said as he turned and headed for the mess<br />hall. All nine traipsed along behind. Tim walked in, filled his cup and seated<br />himself at a long table for ten. He appeared to have his attention focused<br />elsewhere but was surreptitiously keeping an eye on the body language of his<br />five volunteers. One by one the volunteers poured a cup of coffee and took a<br />seat at the table. Tim started “I would like to have you folks decide between<br />yourselves who should have these two positions. I can tell you that we have<br />had the same systems administrator for the last ten years. She finished her<br />contract with the Government and is departing on the Mars Supply Two to<br />return to Earth. She will have about three days to break in her replacement.<br />The Government abolished her position so the Company authorized me to fill it<br />with a Company employee. *<br />“The data base management and data input job is a new position. The<br />person selected should have enough experience to establish a data base of the<br />twelve hundred people that now work for the Government and for the Company.<br />It should be arranged so that if I want twelve plumbers you can print out a list of<br />all plumbers with a thumbnail on each of them so I can just call the ones I want<br />that I think are the best qualified for the job I have in mind. If Carter, the<br />Company Manager wants to know the cubic footage of the new Paradise<br />cavern you can provide him with that information right away. In short I would<br />like all of the information on this facility and the personnel that are employed<br />here at our fingertips. How you handle the selections are up to you. You will<br />just have to talk it out and decide among yourselves who among you could best<br />handle these jobs. I will be back in an hour or so to see how you are making<br />out. If you make your selections before I get back call me on your cell phone.”<br />With that Tim got up and left the room. Before he went out the door he<br />looked back, they were all just sitting there with a dumbfounded look on their<br />faces. They had never heard of a job selection process that worked this way.<br />When he was out the door he called Hilda on her phone. “Hilda, I need a<br />favor, I left nine people sitting near your desk in the back of the dining room. I<br />told them to .... Tim described the situation. “ Would you go sit at your desk for a<br />few minutes and work on some paper work and just listen in on them? If you<br />can spare Carla invite her to your desk also. You two can ostensibly be<br />discussing menu's or something.” “Sure, Tim, I am going to enjoy this, I have<br />never heard of anything like it in my life, I am already eaten up with curiosity to<br />see how it turns out. “<br />Finally one of the women in the group said, “Well I suppose the first order<br />of business is to decide who is here for which job. Why don't those of you<br />interested in becoming system administrator move over to the next table.” With<br />that three men and one woman got up and moved to the next table. Two of<br />them refilled their coffee cups before sitting down. Of the remaining five people<br />four were women and one was a man. The woman who had instigated the<br />move commenced.<br />“My name 'Doris Rimbot,' I have a BA in business management from<br />Carver college, my minor was in computer science. I am married, my husbands<br />name is Ralph, he also works on the construction crew.” She said he was dead<br />set on this job because of the money and he just coerced her into coming<br />along. I don't know anything about construction but I have worked with data<br />base management systems for the last five years. I would very much like to get<br />out of laying cement blocks and digging in the mud.” At that point the man in<br />the group said lots of luck lady, he then got up and left the table. The other four<br />women just sat there. One of them started to say something then thought<br />better of it, got up wished the others luck, and left. None of the other three<br />wanted the job as badly as Doris did and apparently none of them considered<br />themselves as well qualified. “I guess you get the job, Doris,” one of them said.<br />Another said, “I would love to have this job but I am no where near as qualified<br />as you are Doris so I am withdrawing,” “Me too” said the last one. Doris<br />pressed the blue button on her phone and said “CALL Tim Erkin.” she got a<br />busy signal so she poured herself another cup of coffee.<br />The situation was almost the same at the other table. A wimpy little<br />prematurely balding man named “Surge Yugolov” turned out to be so much<br />better qualified than the others at computer technology that the other three<br />capitulated in a matter of minutes. Surge pushed the blue button on his phone<br />but before he could say anything Tim came through the door.<br />“Congratulations to you two, Surge and Doris, I am pleased to have you<br />aboard. Please meet me at the Government Headquarters Office1400. I will<br />show you around and introduce you to the rest of the staff. Neither Doris nor<br />Surge ever found out how Tim had gotten their names. It was pretty simple, as<br />soon as Carla knew the names she left Hilda's desk returned to the kitchen and<br />called Tim. She was the one talking to Tim when Doris got here busy signal<br />and invitation to leave voice mail.<br />Tim then went to his office, but before he could get in the door Carter<br />and Paul collared him and invited him to lunch at the Government dining room.<br />During lunch Tim briefed them and they briefed him on all the latest<br />developments on the facility.<br />Tim brought them up to date on construction, the tunnelers should<br />celebrate another breakthrough some time this week. And we will have a new<br />cavern to tame.<br />*I need to group the nine hundred people that we now have into work<br />crews so I have hired a person to set up and manage a data base for us. While<br />I was at it I found the systems administrator that you said you need, Paul. I<br />didn't think you would object to me making the selection since the Government<br />is no longer funding the position. If we ever become critically short of<br />construction workers I can always pull him but until that time comes he is yours.<br />Both of these people will be at headquarters at 1400 and I will introduce them<br />around. Maybe you can ask Alice to show Serge the ropes before she departs<br />next week. This new girl, Doris is pretty sharp so hopefully by next week she<br />will have enough of the data base set up to organize the construction crews.”<br />Until we breakthrough and tame Utopia we are going to have a lot of<br />surplus labor on our hands so if either of you can think of a project that will keep<br />people occupied let me know. There were seven hundred or more people<br />showed up this morning for assignments so after putting half of them to work I<br />just told the rest to go over and get the supply yard squared away. That has<br />been my day so far.”<br />“Paul and Carter just laughed.”Paul said we discussed establishing a<br />legal system with a police department, courts, judges, laws and everything.<br />Then we discussed the mess we have at City Hall and what we need to do to<br />straighten that out. Then we decided we better notify the Government to send<br />up several surveying crews. We also discussed the need to have an elected<br />Government to handle local issues, you know like a city counsel or something.<br />Nothing is firm yet on any of that but we'll keep you posted.<br />After lunch Tim had a chance encounter with the head of the<br />Government Scientists. “I have a question for you George, It's about Ivy, Abner<br />says it will grow anywhere there is an ordinary lit cavern and it doesn't need<br />special grow lights.” “If it does? Tim, I don't see how it would enrich our<br />atmosphere because without the grow lights it could not photosynthesize.”<br />“But,” answered Tim,”if it didn't photosynthesize, how could grow?” “Good<br />question, is Abner growing ivy now that is not exposed to grow lights?” “Yes, I<br />have seen them, they were just little half Inch shoots but they were bright<br />green.” “I'll check into it and let you know.”<br />At 1400 Tim met with the two new computer people at headquarters. He<br />introduced Doris and Serge to the rest of the staff. Tim then assigned Doris to a<br />computer station and showed her how to access the data base manager<br />program and the available data that was now scattered in various places on the<br />drive. “Hopefully I will have enough of a data base put together in the next few<br />days that you can select work crews based on any criteria you like.” “Hal<br />Johnson, my assistant will be using the data more than I will, he is the one that<br />will be assigning the crews. I will be more interested on the projects that we are<br />working on and how they are progressing. That proved to be all the instruction<br />that Doris ever required. After about a week Doris was able to give anyone in<br />management a list of anything they wanted in just a couple minutes. Everything<br />began running more smoothly.<br />With the size of Paradise cavern plus the Government cavern and the<br />Company cavern Tim found that he was spending most of his time moving from<br />one place to another. Tim thought what I need is a golf cart to get around in, I<br />am going to have to mention that to Carter next time I see him. Tim made a<br />note to ask Carter about Golf carts.<br />Tim next checked on the of the tunneling crew. “We are making much<br />better progress now that we are not working in those darned Mars Suits” the<br />foreman told Tim. I think we are about three or four days out from<br />breakthrough. The tunneling crews changed drilling techniques with each<br />change in soil conditions. When they came to solid rock the would blast or use<br />jack hammers, when they were in loose soil they just used old fashioned picks<br />and shovels, when they were in tight packed soil they used power drills to break<br />it up. They just whatever they needed as conditions changed. If they were in<br />loose soil then they had to reinforce the tunnel sides and top as they went<br />along.<br />All the loose soil they dug out was scooped up with a front end loader<br />and hauled to the farm or the orchard. The rocky soil and rocks would be used<br />as fill when they went to level the cavern floors.<br />Tim constantly had a crew making cement blocks on the surface. He<br />found that cement block shortages were holding up other construction so he<br />started using three crews on the surface making cement blocks when the<br />weather permitted. Two more crews were constantly leveling cavern floors and<br />placing cement blocks to make floors and roadways. They would only be<br />putting a roadway across the Paradise cavern and walking trails so as to not<br />ruin the aesthetic quality of the cavern.<br />As Tim was leaving Paradise cavern he ran into Carter. “What would you<br />think of getting a few golf carts for the managers to get around in?” “I am way<br />ahead of you on that one, Tim, since we have so much distance to cover now I<br />discussed it with Paul a couple weeks ago. He sent out a request for one<br />hundred indoor carts and thirty surface carts with wide wheels that wouldn't sink<br />into Mars sand. When I get their answer I will let you know.”<br />May 27, 2108: George was in The Company cavern so he decided to<br />stop by the farm and have a look at the Ivy. Abner showed him the small plants<br />that now had leaves and were about three Inches tall. “I don't understand<br />it,“said George, In theory this can't be. “ Abner answered, “That reminds me of<br />the story about the old man that took his grandson to the Zoo, the two of them<br />stood in front of the giraffe cage for several minutes watching the animals, then<br />finally the old man yanked on his grandson's arm and lead him away, Come on,<br />son there ain't no such animal. Just maybe, George there is such an animal.”<br />“In that case Abner, go ahead and spread your Ivy like Johnny apple seed, The<br />stuff won't create any problems until you try to get rid of it. There are colleges in<br />New England that have been trying to kill the stuff off for two hundred fifty years<br />but about two hundred years ago they found the solution to their problem.”<br />“What was that?” ask Abner. “Oh they just started calling their little group of<br />colleges 'THE IVY LEAGUE' ”.<br />May 30, 2108 : That evening of was Walter and Thelma's going away<br />party. It was celebrated much as they had celebrated New years Eve. Thelma<br />and Walter each made a speech then Paul and Carter each made a speech<br />telling them how much they would be missed and Rusty was there with a<br />cameraman to record the event for posterity and for use on the local news the<br />following evening.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-91404054034697089052009-04-09T00:58:00.000-07:002009-04-09T00:58:00.401-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 16CHAPTER – Tims promotion<br />May 20, 2008: Carter and Tim were having a cup of coffee at the mess<br />hall that evening while Tim was waiting for Carla to finish. Carter said, “Tim how<br />would you like to have my job as Superintendent?” “Sure but where would that<br />leave you Carter?” “ The reason that you have been running all the operations<br />for the last few weeks is that I have been evaluating how you were able to<br />handle the job. No one other than me knows this but Walter and Thelma are<br />leaving Mars on the Next ship. You are a relative new comer to Mars but you<br />have performed perfectly. You have done everything that I have ask of you. All<br />I have to do is give you instructions in generalities, and never have I had to<br />spell out the specifics of what I wanted done. I have been offered Thelma's job<br />by The Company and I have selected you to take my job as Superintendent of<br />Construction.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />That means that when we reach Utopia it will be up to you to make the<br />construction decisions. You have everything it takes, Tim, you have your<br />engineering degree, your background is clean and I feel I can rely on you. The<br />job is yours if you want it.” Of course I want it Carter, I just don't don't know what<br />to say”.<br />“There is one more thing you may want to consider, you have mentioned<br />that you intend to stay on Mars and have a family. As you know that you can<br />buy your way out of your contract with The Company for five hundred thousand<br />dollars but if you want I can get The Company to release Carla from her<br />contract. This is a one time deal, it is not something that will be an option for<br />you in the future but it can come now as part of your promotion package.” “Let<br />me talk to Carla about it and see what she says” Tim answered. By then Carla<br />had finished her clean up work at the kitchen and approached them. “Carla,<br />lets go home there is something we need to discus.”<br />Carla and Tim went Round and Round all evening pointing out the<br />advantages and disadvantages of the offer. In the end they decided that Tim's<br />raise to $40, 000.00 per month would more than make up for her loss of Income<br />and she could have a full time job at the bank working for Alan and Remar until<br />they started their family. When she had to quit work to give berth to their first<br />child she would not be fined. “I don't know anything about working in a bank,<br />Tim.” “ That's OK, neither did Alan or Remar when they opened First Colonial.<br />Now they are real bankers.” So it was decided that Carla should be released<br />from her company contract.<br />Tim picked Hal Johnson as his assistant. The man was so competent<br />and knowledgeable that you just couldn't overlook him. The men all seemed to<br />like him, maybe his only shortcoming was that he was not a visionary like Tim<br />and Carter.<br />Alan and Remar were thrilled to have a real live employee that they did<br />not have to pay air fare for. Carla told them, “I know nothing about banking or<br />any other kind of paper work, I have been in food service since high school.”<br />“That was our situation but we obtained all we needed to learn from email<br />exchanges with Harvard School of Business and these books here in our office.<br />I propose that we first put you on a training program using the same materials<br />that we used. I printed hard copies of all our lessons and I will feed them to you<br />as fast as you can absorb them.” We can't afford to pay you more than $500.00<br />per week while you are in training but as soon as you start working we will pay<br />the same wage you have been earning.<br />March 27, 2008: Carla began training for a career in banking. At first it<br />was all very confusing and at times she thought that she would never get it.<br />Then little by little she made progress. She got to the point that when she read<br />something she could see how it related to something she had previously<br />learned. Luckily she had already learned to touch type on a keyboard and use<br />a ten key adding machine. After the initial shock she began to progress rapidly.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-75696318846444981462009-04-08T00:54:00.000-07:002009-04-08T00:54:01.003-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 15CHAPTER – First Breakthrough into Paradise<br />February 10, 2108: The drillers broke through into the first of the new<br />caverns. The Talk Show host on Radio MARS interrupted all the music stations<br />“Guess What Folks, We have a breakthrough. Stay tuned to your talk radio<br />station for all the details.”<br />There was much fanfare in the community. Special meals were served<br />and there was a general celebration. That one thing was still lacking but they<br />managed to make a gala day of it anyway. The day of the breakthrough Thelma<br />declared a holiday and gave everyone the rest of the day off, except for the<br />cooks and a few other key people. It really wasn't all that great to have the rest<br />of the day off, it was almost quitting time anyway.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />When cavern was opened the workers were taken aback by it's<br />awesome beauty, unlike the existing caverns it was populated by stalagmites,<br />stalactites and majestic columns. It must have been broad daylight on the<br />surface of the planet because the effect of the sunlight trickling through the<br />fissures was gorgeous.<br />Stalactites are formed by the deposition of calcium carbonate and other<br />minerals, which is precipitated from mineralized water solutions. The<br />corresponding formation on the floor underneath a stalactite is known as a<br />stalagmite. Given enough time, these formations can meet, resulting in a<br />formation known as a column.<br />Loud noises and voices created echo's that vibrated off the walls. There<br />were several flowing rivers and streams and magnificent little lakes dotted the<br />floor. The cavern was only one mile wide where they were crossing but faded<br />off into the horizon at both sides as far as their most powerful portable lights<br />could penetrate. Subsequent measurements indicated that this new cavern<br />covered 14 square miles at floor level. Tim, standing there awe struck, in his<br />space suit knew that this was to be a national park and first class recreation<br />area. It was as close as you could get on Mars to a forest. Later that day when<br />they were back in the Government cavern Tim described it to Carter, Thelma<br />and Walter. Tim then took the three of them on a guided tour of the cavern.<br />They took along a lighting crew with the best portable lights available in the<br />colony. Thelma remarked, ”This place looks like paradise.“ ”So it was that<br />Paradise Park got it's name.”<br />In their exploration of the cavern, up against one wall they came across a<br />small cave. In front of the cave they found the remnants of a fire pit. On further<br />examination of the site they found a dozen or more petroglyph's depicting a<br />hunt. The hunters all had two arms and two legs. The animal they hunted<br />looked like a cross between a bison and an elephant.<br />“This is fantastic, do you realize that we are looking at the first evidence<br />ever found that proves that manlike beings inhabited this planet at some ancient<br />time.<br />Walter immediately tried to call someone on his cell phone but there was<br />no service available. They scurried back to the Government cavern and Walter<br />placed his call. The scientist who answered, upon hearing what they had found,<br />called six or seven other scientists and a photographer. Walter told the lighting<br />crew to take a break but remain where they were.<br />An hour or so went by before seven people in Mars suits approached<br />from the Government housing area. The entire party returned to the place<br />where they had found the artifacts. The scientists were ecstatic. You could just<br />sense that this was the reason that they had signed on to work on Mars in the<br />first place was the hope of finding something like this. They had the<br />photographer take dozens of pictures from every angle then they took samples<br />of material from the fire pit for carbon age dating. At that point Tim, Carter,<br />Thelma and Walter took their leave. “This place seems to be in good hands so<br />we are going to have dinner, Thelma informed them. The scientists hardly<br />noticed their departure.<br />After dinner Tim went over to MARS-TV and told Rusty about the find<br />and the cave. Rusty had already heard about the find but hadn't had time to go<br />inspect the site for himself before he had to go on the air with the local news.<br />He invited Tim to stick around and be his guest on the show. Tim was a little<br />uneasy being on camera but he stayed and described what they had found to<br />the entire community. “For the first time the news from here is going to<br />dominate the news on Earth for quite a while.” he told Tim after the show. “I am<br />now going to grab a photographer and get some pictures myself and then get<br />this on the internet. We are going to be famous, Tim.” Rusty sounded so<br />excited that Tim had to smile.<br />For the two days following the discovery all of the networks on Earth did<br />carry Tim's description of the find. After that they started carrying the opinions<br />of Scientists and Mars management people. After about a week an important<br />political assassination occurred in Germany and the media moved on to<br />greener pastures.<br />In the months that followed they would seal and pressurize the remaining<br />caverns en route to Utopia . They had already chosen the name of Cavern City<br />as the name of the Capital City to be built in Utopia.<br />February 16, 2108: The crew started tunneling the next tunnel and it was<br />to be a whopper, 940 feet with an offset to the right. The work was miserable<br />because they were still working in their Mars suits. No one liked working in<br />those Mars suits. The temperature in the unpressurized cavern was just above<br />freezing but the suits were heated and well insulated. It was just that they were<br />so clumsy to move around in.<br />A week went by and the tunnel was in about one hundred feet when one<br />of the workers summoned the crew chief. “Joe here is acting funny, you better<br />get him back to the clinic and have the doc check him over. Two men lead and<br />then carried Joe back through the airlock then got him out of his suit. By this<br />time he was unconscious. They carried him to the clinic and the doctors<br />dropped what they were doing and went to work on him. Dr. Rivera<br />immediately took over the case. “Thanks, Guys we will give him a complete<br />examination and try and work up a diagnosis but in the meantime I suggest that<br />you have your crew chief get everyone out of that cavern and out of their Mars<br />Suits until we know just what we are dealing with here.<br />February 17, 2108: Tim heard about Joe's mysterious ailment on talk<br />radio. The next morning after breakfast Tim stopped by the clinic to see how<br />Joe was getting along and Juan told Tim that he had passed away shortly after<br />being brought in. Juan also said that another member of the community had<br />come down with the same ailment. The good news was that this person was<br />working on the surface in a Mars suit. Joe's autopsy showed that he had died<br />from inhaling Carbon Dioxide. Dr Rivera scanned the new patient for signs of<br />Carbon Dioxide poisoning and bingo he was suffering from the same thing.<br />They then tested the Mars Suits these two men were wearing and they tested<br />OK. “We think you have been inhaling Carbon Dioxide and that is why you are<br />sick” Dr. Rivera told his patient. “No honest Dr. I didn't breathe in and I had my<br />helmet off for less than a minute.” “Why, in God's name did you take it off in the<br />first place Mr Salva?” Because it was closing in on me, I just couldn't resist<br />taking it off for just a few seconds and I didn't breathe in while it was off.”<br />Mystery solved, he had his helmet off for less than a minute while he held his<br />breath then when he put it back on he had to take a deep breath before the suit<br />had a chance to clean the Carbon Dioxide out of the helmet. Tim put out a<br />memo to all personnel wearing Mars suits in unpressurized atmosphere, that if<br />you became overcome with claustrophobia while wearing your suit, no matter<br />how Inconvenient it was return immediately to the nearest pressurized<br />atmosphere before removing your helmet. He explained that they had recently<br />had one death and one serious illness from workers doing this. Once Tims<br />memo and the grapevine word of mouth got out then they had no more<br />problems with this mysterious affliction. Talk radio discussed little else that day.<br />February 25, 2108: The eighth day of tunneling. They ran a pressure<br />test and Paradise passed with flying colors. Late on February 26 Paradise had<br />been pressurized and atmosphere was introduced. Tomorrow the men could<br />work without suits. If there was a breach they would have plenty of time to<br />dawn their Mars suits before the atmosphere all escaped.<br />February 26, 2108: The crews assigned to enlarge tunnels went to work<br />on the first tunnel, the one that ran from the government cavern to Paradise.<br />Tunnel enlarging proved to be a more time consuming task than digging the<br />tunnel in the first place. Much of the work had to be done by hand and<br />wherever they found the walls or ceiling of the tunnel was of loose material it<br />had to be concrete reinforced. What worked best was having three crews at a<br />time working on enlarging and stabilizing the tunnels.<br />When the crews finished enlarging the tunnel it looked very professional.<br />It had a paved highway for a floor that allowed for two lanes of vehicular traffic.<br />Everything that needed reenforcement had been reinforced with concrete and<br />rebar. The surfaces were all smooth and the tunnel was lit with a bank of lights<br />that ran down the top. There was a pedestrian walking path on one side with<br />additional lights spaced four feet apart. The largest power equipment on Mars<br />could easily navigate the tunnel once it had been finished.<br />March 1, 2108: Tim, Carla, Juan and Lupe were becoming fond of Mars<br />sports and looked forward to a game of shuffle board every evening. The four<br />courts in the government cavern were adequate for the three hundred people<br />that were on the planet before Tims group had arrived but it seemed as though<br />recently they were always busy in the evenings. Tim and Juan finally gave up<br />waiting for a court after an hour. Tim checked around and found that the<br />croquet courts the situation was the same.<br />March 2, 2108: Tim discussed the matter with Carter before morning<br />muster. “Carter we need more croquet and shuffle board courts, the ones we<br />have are always busy, I was thinking that there is plenty of room in Paradise for<br />such facilities as well as an additional gymnasium. If you have any surplus<br />crews could some of them be assigned to constructing a new recreation<br />facility?” “Never volunteer Tim, you just found yourself a job. Once you have<br />the new facility functioning you can dismantle the old facilities in the<br />government cavern. I think we have some extra equipment for those sports in<br />the supply yard but you will probably have to order additional equipment from<br />the company.”<br />After muster Carter and another man accompanied Tim to Paradise<br />cavern. “Carter, look at this hot pool and this warm river, if this water is safe<br />perhaps the people could use it for relaxing baths and if that stream is safe<br />maybe it would support fish. We could always breed the fish in enclosed ponds<br />then move them to this stream once they were too large to fit through the exit<br />mesh. That would give us two uses, we could go fishing when we were off duty<br />and we could harvest the fish for the mess hall. We could also raise fish in the<br />river and lake in The Company cavern now that it is heated.” “The fish for The<br />Company cavern are already halfway here from Earth.<br />Carter walked up. “Frank here and I were just coming to inspect the pool.<br />Frank has his water testing kit with him, any more great suggestions?”<br />“Yes this where I would like to put the new recreation center and gym,<br />that way we could incorporate the hot pool with the other recreational facilities.”<br />“Suits me Tim, we could end up with a first class facility here.”<br />At muster Carter asked for volunteers to move and enlarge the sports<br />center to Paradise. Fifteen people that were not working on anything else at<br />the moment volunteered. Carter then announced that until further notice<br />anyone who had run out of work should report to Tim in the Paradise cavern to<br />see if he needed any additional help.<br />Tim decided to put the new recreation area on the other side of the<br />parking lot by the spa. The new gym would be integrated into the recreation<br />area. Paradise was rapidly becoming a recreational facility.<br />At least once and sometimes as many as three times a day Tim would<br />get a phone call from Carter asking him to check on the progress of the<br />tunneling crew and find out if they needed anything or Carter might ask him to<br />check on the tables in the dining room, there had been some complaints of<br />benches that did not feel solid when you sat on them, or Tim would be asked to<br />check up on the cement block production on the surface. One thing after<br />another Carter was asking Tim to handle for him and Carter was seldom seen<br />out in the field. He could always be found in his office, knee deep in paper<br />work.<br />On several occasions Carter had asked Tim to handle the morning<br />muster. He had a clever way of asking, he would start the phone conversation<br />after Tim answered by saying, “Here is what I need to have you do when you<br />call muster in the morning, Tim,” then Carter would start listing everything that<br />he wanted Tim to do.” Tim was becoming Carters assistant by default. Carter<br />just kept putting Tim in charge of projects.<br />The recreation center turned out to be a bigger job than Tim had<br />anticipated. At times Tim had as many as thirty five people working on the<br />project. Tim was constantly being called away to handle some pressing matter<br />for Carter. Tim divided the people working on the project in Paradise into two<br />groups then had the crews pick a crew chief for each crew. Tim delegated<br />responsibility to the crew chiefs to handle things when Carter had him out doing<br />other things.<br />May 15, 2008: “This is looking really great Tim, what do you want me to<br />work on today?” “I am sure that we will think of more things as we go along<br />Rob but for now we have about completed everything that I had on the plan that<br />Carter approved. Besides the spa and the warm river we now have a nine hole<br />chip and put golf course, ten shuffle board courts ten croquet courts and ten<br />horseshoe pits. There are even public bathrooms and a new gym. We need<br />more equipment but it's all on order.”<br />No longer did people say, “let's go over to the Paradise cavern,” now<br />they just said, “Let's go to the park.”<br />May 16, 2008: Abner was inspecting the Paradise cavern. All of the<br />improvements had been made in the large center and to the left of where the<br />tunnel entered. That was the beautiful part of the cavern. He noticed that<br />beyond the tunnel entrance and off to the right the ceiling dropped off sharply.<br />There was, at the far end, off to the right an area of approximately two square<br />miles where the ceiling ranged in height from forty to fifty feet off the cavern<br />floor. The floor was almost level. There were no stalagmites or stalactites at<br />this end of the cavern. There was a stream of cool clear water dividing the area<br />down the center. Abner got the picture instantly. Here was the future home of<br />the orchard. At the far end of the area, the approximately one square mile that<br />lay behind the stream the air temperature was noticeably warmer. Here, he<br />thought would be the place where he would raise tropical plants.<br />Abner got on the phone and asked Tim “Where are right now, good<br />buddy?” Tim said “I am over doing some finishing touches to the recreation<br />area.” “When you finish there would you mind skipping down to the small end<br />of the cavern, there is something I want to show you.”<br />“This is what I have in mind for this area, Tim.” Abner then went on to<br />explain his vision of the orchard and the tropical plant farm. “Here is what I<br />propose, Tim, lets build another farm right here in this two square mile area,<br />another farm house, barn and everything. The Yang's could move over here<br />and tend these plants. The job has gotten too big for the six of us at the old<br />farm already. I have been thinking of asking you to assign more permanent<br />people as farmers but I didn't know where to house them. It is important that<br />the people working full time on the farm live on the farm. What I would like to<br />see is four people to take the Yang's place at the old farm, that would give us a<br />crew of six full time permanent farmers. Then we will need four more people to<br />live here on this side with the Yang's and tend the orchards and the tropical<br />plants.”<br />“Do you already have people in mind to fill these jobs, Abner?” “As a<br />matter of fact I do, I have kept a close eye on the people that you have detailed<br />to the farm since it opened and I could give you the list of names any time you<br />want them.” “You can give me the list today, right now if you like. Figure out<br />how many people you can keep busy for the next month, let me know the<br />number and the skills you need and I will assign them to you in the morning at<br />muster. You can keep them as long as you have work for them. Surplus labor<br />is my biggest problem right now. It goes without saying that I will need Walter,<br />Thelma, Carter and George to consent to the project and have a scientific crew<br />approve it for environmental impact but I know already that I will get approval<br />and the scientists are also looking for projects. I can get some of them on it<br />today.”<br />Tim was delighted to have this project. It gave him something for the<br />people to do. He put a call in right then for Carter, Walter, Thelma and George<br />to see if they were available. They were all available and said they would meet<br />Tim and Abner there in less than an hour.<br />While they were waiting Tim and Abner explored the area further and<br />made several more suggestions to each other.<br />Once they had all arrived, Tim and Abner showed them the area for the<br />proposed project and described the ideas that they had been kicking around.<br />Everyone seemed thrilled with the idea. George said “When the other scientists<br />and I were looking at the cave find we made a quick pass through here and one<br />of the other scientists had remarked, 'this is where we should have put the farm'<br />I am sure you will have no objection from the environmental establishment.“<br />Within two hours it was a done deal. There were quite a few items that<br />had to be ordered from the Company but they would arrive in December when<br />Mars Runner made it's first call on Mars.<br />May 17, 2008: At muster Tim called out the names of the eight people<br />that Abner had given him. They were four married couples. Tim knew they<br />were all anxious to work on the farm full time but he asked them anyway, just for<br />the record. Tim suggested that they work out the living arrangements with the<br />other farmers. Of course they could not move in until the new farm house was<br />completed.<br />Tim then asked for the 100 volunteers that Abner had said he could use<br />and assigned them to the task of building the new far for as long as they were<br />needed.<br />Abner told the group at muster that within less than four years Mars<br />would be producing most of the food consumed on Mars including bananas,<br />pine apple, coffee and coconuts. There was one more big food group to go,<br />grain. They would find the ideal spot but it would have to be in some yet<br />unseen cavern.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-5834086093847621772009-04-07T00:53:00.000-07:002009-04-07T00:53:00.708-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 14CHAPTER – A bank is organized<br />February 5, 2108: Alan Jeffery, and Remar Otton two of the men who<br />had completed their Government contracts and remained on Mars as private<br />citizens decided that they had just figured out the perfect small business to go<br />into. They arranged through Thelma to lease a lot in The Company cavern<br />business district right next to where the Burger Boy's building stood. They went<br />to work building a store front with their own hands. They were able to negotiate<br />for and acquire from the Government a surplus safe and a good supply of rebar<br />reinforcing rods used to reinforce concrete. They paid a couple of men that<br />worked as welders to come over and weld a metal frame on all four sides of<br />their store front then they used Mars cement to cover the walls. Outside the<br />walls they stacked the usual cement blocks and when they were finished they<br />bought enough scrap metal to have a front door welded together and hinges<br />made. When they were through they owned the most in-penetrable building in<br />the colony. They then told Thelma and Walter that wanted some kind of charter<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />making their business legal. There was a lot of consternation all around but<br />they finally got their permission from The Company and from the Government.<br />The First Colonial Bank of Mars was open for business. The money poured in,<br />they soon had over two million dollars on deposit in their safe. They did not pay<br />any interest but rather charged their customers a small fee for the service of<br />safeguarding their money. They were able to acquire some surplus computer<br />equipment from the Government and started printing checks which were really<br />just IOU's in small amounts and selling them at the bank.<br />“In case you hadn't noticed Alan we don't know diddle squat about<br />running a bank.” “I realize that Remar, but we are both intelligent men and we<br />can learn.” “Here is what I propose, lets advertise and hire an agent/consultant<br />on Earth that does know about banking. We can then have him locate a<br />correspondence course from some banker training school that will be willing to<br />email us all of our study material and send up the most important books on<br />banking on the next supply ship”<br />They both approved of that plan and emailed an ad to one of the New<br />York newspapers to run in their Classified section under help wanted. They<br />were flooded with emails which they read aloud to each other then selected the<br />three best qualified and sent them an email requesting a full resume. They<br />eventually settled on the best qualified candidate and hired him for just a<br />nominal consulting fee. They then found a qualified detective agency and ran a<br />thorough background check on the man. He came out squeaky clean. Then<br />the email started flying back and forth from them and their consultant.<br />Their agent had spoken with one of his old professors at Harvard<br />University school of business who was willing to undertake educating them via<br />email. Shortly study plans began to arrive by email. They had a lot of time on<br />their hands so they started knocking out the lessons at a record pace. Within<br />six months they had the books that he had sent up on the supply ship and were<br />both becoming banking experts. They had their agent pick out a good selection<br />of banking business equipment and had that sent up. They began to offer more<br />services at the bank. They arranged a form that their clients could sign<br />directing that all future payments for wages were to be deposited in First<br />Colonial bank. Since they had all the latest banking equipment they had to add<br />on another room to the bank. They found two women on Mars who had once<br />held responsible positions in banks on Earth and persuaded them to come in<br />after working on their regular jobs and handle the paper flow at the bank. They<br />had established a correspondent bank relationship with big name stock and<br />bond brokerage firms and with the largest bank in the United States. Things got<br />a little sticky when they applied to become an FDIC member bank. There were<br />just so many things about First Colonial that did not fit the FDIC mold. It took<br />them almost six months but with the help of two U.S. Senators finally began to<br />print on the bottom of all their forms the magic words “Member FDIC” They<br />could now exchange bank drafts with their New York Correspondent bank and<br />employed a trust officer at their correspondent bank to temporarily handle<br />investments for their bank. They knew that as soon as there was a demand for<br />borrowed money on Mars they would be financing that development through<br />their bank but until then the money would be earning a good return invested on<br />Earth. At that point they began to pay interest on deposits and more money<br />poured in. The workers on Mars liked having their nest eggs on Mars where<br />they could keep an eye on them. By the time Utopia was sealed they hoped<br />that their little bank could justifiably claim that they were holding over one billion<br />dollars in deposits.<br />The Agent that they had hired in New York had no interest in moving to<br />Mars but he recommended a young man that had excellent credentials. First<br />Colonial hired the man and his wife, bit the bullet and paid the one million dollar<br />fee to have them moved to Mars. When Abe and Lilly Schuman arrived on<br />Mars the bank began to look a little like and operate a lot like a real bank. Lilly<br />was installed as the head teller and cashier. Abe was given the title of Manager,<br />Abe also took on the duties of loan officer. Allen and Remar ended up doing<br />pretty much what Abe told them to do.<br />With the arrival of the second ship after opening the bank they received<br />two million dollars in ones and fives which they promptly made available for<br />circulation on Mars. They bought the bank drafts that they had sold with small<br />bills. In the meantime when the first ship arrived after opening the bank Burger<br />Boy's had received their three million dollars in change which they deposited in<br />the bank so now there was more money in circulation than they would need<br />until Utopia opened up. The people on Mars tended to think in terms of all<br />progress and development as “When Utopia Opens”.<br />Paul, Tim and Carla thought it was a godsend having the bank here<br />because since Mars wages were not taxable the IRS paid little attention to<br />transfers of cash to and from banks on Earth and First Colonial Bank on Mars.<br />Long before Utopia opened Tim and Carla had over a million dollars on deposit.<br />The bankers were happy because they were the only bank in the system that<br />didn't have to anticipate the arrival of inspectors from the FDIC, although they<br />were a member bank it was just too damned expensive to send an FDIC<br />inspector up to Mars to inspect or audit First Colonial. Neither the FDIC nor the<br />bank wanted sensitive information traveling back and forth by email so they<br />were largely left alone. It also might be noted that the FDIC had little doubt<br />about the solvency of First Colonial Bank.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-73116655673794003902009-04-06T00:50:00.000-07:002009-04-06T00:50:00.530-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 13CHAPTER – Swap Meet and Currency<br />January 21, 2108: Back on Mars work had started on the first of the new<br />tunnels and had progressed smoothly. This first tunnel would run eight hundred<br />feet.<br />The new arrivals were extremely qualified people with a good attitude. It<br />was difficult for Tim to find enough work to keep them all busy until they made<br />the first breakthrough. The air lock had been set where the dig had started.<br />The dig had not turned up any new diamonds but they were finding many<br />semiprecious stones that would make great jewelry.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />SWAP MEET<br />A lot of people had accumulated things that they no longer needed or<br />used so they decided to hold the first swap meet on Mars. It was really a kind<br />of pitiful beginning to what was to become a Martian tradition. Surplus personal<br />property would always be in short supply even after stores began selling<br />merchandise. There were dozens of vendors and hundreds of buyers but<br />everyone needed change for a $100.00 bill.<br />CURRENCY PROBLEMS<br />Most people had plenty of cash and no place to spend it. Making change<br />was a problem for those buying or selling anything. Most of the cash was in<br />large bills. There was a real shortage of small bills. Almost no one missed the<br />coins because nothing on Mars would be sold for odd change for a while yet. At<br />least not until Burger Boy's opened. Bob told Tim that when the next ship<br />arrived he would have three million Dollars in change but that wouldn't be until<br />May. Until then people were just writing out IOU's and signing them. Then that<br />person would pass the IOU along to someone else and sometimes the IOU that<br />someone had written would find its way back to the one that wrote it. Some<br />people kept track of their outstanding IOU's and some didn't. Everybody took<br />IOU's willingly because that was about the only medium of exchange other than<br />large bills. People began to get concerned about all the money they had<br />stashed in their unlocked homes.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-18269893483175643282009-04-05T00:48:00.000-07:002009-04-05T00:48:01.038-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 12CHAPTER – Earth is having problems<br />Never in history had the difference between the developed nations and<br />the third world been so pronounced.<br />Nuclear proliferation treaties had not been effective. There were, by the<br />year 2100 more than sixty nations on Earth that possessed nuclear weapons.<br />Some had delivery systems and some just relied suicide bombers that carried<br />some sort of nuclear devise in suit cases.<br />Around 2050 coal liquefaction had been perfected to the point where<br />100% clean burning, non polluting liquid fuel could be made from coal. Many<br />countries on Earth that did not have petroleum had enormous coal reserves.<br />There was no longer any demand for petroleum or products made from<br />petroleum.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />Lithium Ion batteries had been perfected and powered all transportation<br />equipment, they could be recharged in under ten minutes.<br />Canada and Australia were the only two remaining food exporting<br />countries. All the other developed countries had to scramble to keep up with<br />feeding their own burgeoning populations.<br />So many people in the third world were dying of malnutrition and<br />starvation every year that the total population of the planet peaked at nine<br />billion and had begun to recede. Many of these third world countries had<br />acquired nuclear weapons.<br />With the loss of oil revenue the middle east had become even more of a<br />powder keg. Because of the wealth created during the years when petroleum<br />dominated Earth's fuel needs there remained several thousand people in the<br />middle east who had a net worth in excess of fifty million dollars. The rest of the<br />people living in the area lived in disparate abject poverty. Death from<br />malnutrition and starvation numbered in the thousands every day. The very rich<br />managed to place the blame for the unfortunate circumstances of the poor onto<br />the developed nations. Jihad was more popular than it had ever been. It was<br />said by one Western Philosopher of those in the middle east who had not died<br />of starvation, “Hatred of the West was the only thing that was keeping them<br />alive.”<br />Africa had not fared as badly as you might imagine. Disease and hunger<br />had taken so many that the land was beginning to recover. The Africa of 2107<br />once again began to resemble the Africa that the White Man had first visited<br />seven hundred years earlier.<br />The story in Asia could be summed up in one word, overpopulation.<br />During the twenty first century many Asian nations had pushed their way to the<br />forefront in the areas of science, industry and world trade, only to fail because<br />they were unable to control their growing populations. No matter how<br />industrious they were they just could not feed all their people.<br />This was the situation on the planet Earth in the year 2107. The<br />international situation had become a ticking time bomb.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-64040114424440306012009-04-04T00:36:00.000-07:002009-04-04T00:36:00.305-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 11CHAPTER - Planning the March to Utopia<br />January 17, 2108: That afternoon when Tim returned to Carter's office<br />there were three construction workers and a couple Government scientists<br />going over some drawings on Carters desk. “Tim, take a look at this. The big<br />cavern which I think we should start calling Utopia for now, is about six miles<br />from this wall in the Government cavern. There are smaller caverns along the<br />way that we are going to have to secure and pressurize before advancing and<br />the way I see it we are going to have to tunnel for up to two miles. Our biggest<br />problem is that these caverns are not all on the same level. See this long<br />narrow cavern right here it is deeper than the others but once we reach the floor<br />of this long slender cavern right here it will enter right into Utopia on the same<br />level. so it looks like we are going to have to tunnel down to that sliver before<br />we can continue. Setting the downgrade into that cavern will be a real problem.<br />We will have at least five, maybe six smaller caverns to secure and pressurize<br />before we reach Utopia .<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />How long do you estimate it will take us to dig two miles of tunnel<br />Johnson?” “Let's see” said Johnson, “if we can complete one foot of tunnel per<br />hour average it would take roughly ten thousand hours, that would be about<br />seven months of continuous tunneling if we worked around the clock. That<br />could vary considerably depending on soil conditions and problems that we<br />might be encountered in sealing off the small caverns that we go through. We<br />have six hundred workers now and can expect at least three hundred more<br />before we reach Utopia<br />. “I would say that our tunneling crews would have to work in Mars suits<br />a lot of the time. Of course once a new cavern had been pressurized they<br />could headquarter in that cavern. The men will need 24 hours rest after working<br />eight hours and we will need eight men working at all times so that would mean<br />a tunneling crew of 32 men. All things considered I would say we will reach<br />Utopia in one to two years. At least that gives a workable time frame.”<br />“Once a tunnel is opened it will need to be enlarged. We will need four<br />more crews of eight men each for this job. They should not start work on a<br />tunnel until the tunneling crew has moved on to the next tunneling job so they<br />do not get into each others way. The crews doing the enlarging can use the dirt<br />they remove for top soil at the farm or for fill dirt in leveling the caverns. The<br />tunneling crews working for breakthrough will be digging approximately eight<br />foot by eight foot tunnels, the second crews will be enlarging the tunnels to 25<br />feet wide by 20 feet high.”<br />“Your next Fossum, how long will it take to seal off the small caverns and<br />pressurize them? “Does your chart show how many fissures need to be sealed<br />between here and Utopia, yes there is a count here for each cavern and a total<br />of up to one hundred fissures but that is only an estimate. There average width<br />on the chart appears to be three or four feet. “I estimate that a crew can seal<br />one fissure per day. That takes into account that the workers can not be<br />exposed to the surface for more than two hours at a time. All things considered<br />there is probably three to four months work there if we have the materials and if<br />we could only have one crew working at a time.” “Why don't you explain how<br />you go about sealing a fissure, Dave.” “We locate the fissures that need to be<br />filled by placing a bright light in the cavern then going out after dark in Mars<br />suits and making a visual observation of where the light penetrates the surface.<br />Then we flag the location so that we can find it the next day. To plug the hole<br />we dig out around the fissure, usually an eight foot hole and down three or four<br />feet until we hopefully hit bedrock. Then we lay in an eight foot piece of circular<br />one Inch tempered plywood. We then mix the concrete and pour it into hole<br />about eight Inches deep. When the concrete has cured we lay down eight foot<br />long pieces of rebar, criss crossed and wire the joints together. we pour fresh<br />concrete about one foot thick then when that has cured we lay on another<br />course of rebar followed by another course of concrete. The rest we just fill with<br />Mars soil until it is level with the surface.” This will take a crew about eight hours<br />in working time but they can be working on other fissures while the cement is<br />curing. Also keep in mind that when the winds come up on the surface we<br />can't do any work outside. Twice a year for almost a month at a time the winds<br />are too strong to do any work on the surface. There will probably be times<br />when opening one of the caverns will be delayed for a considerable time waiting<br />for the wind to die down.”<br />“How about installing and moving the air locks can one crew keep up,<br />Johnson fielded that question, “That is a definite yes but they would be kept<br />busy. As long as we have plenty of workers we should probably assign two<br />crews. One crew can set the small temporary locks while the other can set the<br />larger permanent sliding air locks once the tunnels have been enlarged. Can<br />our system handle the load of pressurizing that much new space. “Certainly not<br />all at once but if we only had to do one small cavern per week the answer would<br />be yes, We have some old oxygen making equipment over in supply that could<br />keep the atmosphere breathable without running any risk at all. Lets say we<br />can handle the atmosphere problem throughout the whole system as we go but<br />none of what we have said so far applies to Utopia .”<br />“If any of the small caverns turn out to be larger than anticipated then we<br />will install additional atmosphere apparatus along the way. While we are at it<br />we might as well have several more systems on order. We do have three<br />backup systems in the supply yard now but it is important that we always<br />maintain twice as much atmosphere equipment as we need so if we have an<br />equipment failure we will still have atmosphere. We could install the new<br />systems as we go and keep ordering more back up systems from the Company.<br />Actually the more area that we are providing atmosphere for the safer we will<br />be. We should discuss our needs in this area with the government employee<br />who handles the atmosphere now and assign more workers to that function. If<br />they are not needed on a given day he can release the workers to perform other<br />work until he does need them but they should all be trained to install and<br />maintain these systems. When we reach Utopia we'll need several new<br />systems to maintain atmosphere in a cavern that large. I won't know just how<br />many until we get there and I make some calculations.”<br />As for our maps and our estimation of the size and shape of the caverns<br />we will be going through keep in mind that this information was gathered<br />several years ago by flying over the area and taking infrared pictures. For a<br />number of reasons they may not be completely accurate.<br />“How many men can we spare now to start digging?” “With all of the<br />problems that I know we will encounter, my estimate is that we will need, fifty or<br />more. That would cover all of the support operations. I suggest that today we<br />select who we want on our tunneling crews, gather our equipment and start<br />them out in the morning under Johnson's supervision. Our first tunnel is going<br />to be a little over eight hundred feet long, we have plenty of people and we can<br />work them four hours on and 24 hours off. We won't need to set the air tight<br />seal until they are in seven hundred ninety feet. Then we will set the door and<br />the men will have to start working in Mars suits for the last ten feet to<br />breakthrough.”<br />Johnson and Tim spent the rest of the day going over lists of employees<br />and picking out the men that they wanted on the first four crews. The men were<br />notified by cell phone that they would start tunneling the next morning. They<br />were then asked to join Johnson in the supply depot and start locating all the<br />equipment they could find. A concrete block wall was erected in front of the<br />tunnel site but set back 20 feet to give the men room to work. The electricians<br />ran power over to the site and trenches were dug to catch the debris. Any of<br />the soil removed would be moved to where the farm was being set up. The<br />farmers could use it to make topsoil or the crews could use it in the wall that<br />would run along the river to protect the lake and stream from being<br />contaminated by the crop runoff.<br />January 19, 2108: Among the cargo Items unloaded from Mars Supply<br />One was the new equipment for processing human waste. As soon as Carter<br />saw it and read the setup manual he set two crews to installing the equipment.<br />One of the Scientists looking over the equipment decided that the machine<br />would fit in the small cavern attached to the Government cavern that had been<br />used as public bath rooms. Once it had been installed men drilled a four Inch<br />hole down from the surface and attached a power vent. Then put an air lock on<br />the door leading into the Government cavern. When the machine was in use<br />they would shut the air lock and work in Mars suits until they had finished<br />processing the waste matter.<br />The machine separated the matter into three parts. The liquid was<br />processed through reverse osmosis equipment and then allowed to run off into<br />the crevasse where they had been dumping everything. The non<br />biodegradable matter, ie the plastic porta potty liners or any other non<br />biodegradable matter that had found it's way into the sewer system, were<br />compressed into bricks and spat out the front of the machine where workers<br />stacked them to the side of the cavern. The machine then processed the<br />biodegradable mass which came out as a kind of mulch which was odorless<br />and and only slightly damp. All harmful bacteria had been removed but the<br />mulch was still rich in nutrients. The men captured this material in large plastic<br />garbage bags. Once the machine had finished processing the batch for the day<br />the crew turned on the power vent to the surface and opened a vent pipe that<br />ran along side the air lock. It only took a few seconds to exhaust all the stale air<br />in the cavern. Once the air was clean they could they would close the vents<br />and inject a strong ammonia based deodorant into the small cavern and open<br />the air lock. It took three men working in Mars suits about two hours per day to<br />process the waste. The result was about five hundred pounds of fertile mulch<br />and thirty or so plastic bricks that could be very valuable as light weight<br />building materials.<br />The mulch was taken over to the farm where Abner could combine it with<br />mineral nitrates and other fertilizers before it was mixing it with Mars dirt to<br />make top soil. Abner would soon need lots of top soil.<br />This daily processing chore was considered to be an undesirable job.<br />There were plenty of volunteers when they learned that they only had to work<br />about a four hour day.<br />January 20, 2108: The farm was coming along nicely. A large farm<br />house, lab and barn were being constructed. This would be the only house on<br />Mars with a fully functional kitchen, two bathrooms and four bedrooms. The<br />reason for the four bedrooms was that both couples had indicated that they<br />were probably on Mars to spend the rest of their lives and both couples<br />intended to start a family. Tim really liked the farm couples and it got him to<br />thinking about how they were making a commitment to live out their lives on<br />Mars after only being here a few days.<br />Tim asked Abner “What was it you said you wanted to show me next time<br />I got over this way” “The Ivy, Tim, The Ivy, look at this stuff.” By then the little<br />green shoots were up almost half an Inch. This stuff is like a weed, it will grow<br />anywhere even in ordinary cave light, it looks pleasing to the eye, especially<br />against these stark cavern walls and it will improve our atmosphere, or at least<br />take some of the load off our atmosphere apparatus.” “Sounds good but maybe<br />we better discuss it with the scientists before we start spreading the stuff<br />around.”<br />That evening Tim and Carla had a long talk. “How do you feel about<br />Mars now Carla?” I like it so far, it seems more vibrant and alive and it certainly<br />has a low crime rate. The work that I do is the same as I was doing on Earth<br />but the people are nicer to work with and the way The Company bends over<br />backward to provide us anything we ask for is wonderful. The only thing that<br />bothers me is that my biological clock is running and I would like to start a<br />family. We could start one here on Mars but there would be fines and penalties,<br />you know.” “I want a family also Carla, in a little over a year we will break into<br />Utopia Cavern and even if it takes two more years to seal and pressurize, we<br />are still looking at living in Utopia when our kids start school.”<br />“There we will have regular streets, with electric cars darting around, we<br />will have schools and churches and businesses. Bob told me that one of the<br />other prime investors in Mars Colony, Inc. is the family that owns all the biggest<br />store chain on Earth but they want to hold off opening up on Mars until Utopia is<br />ready”.<br />“OK Carla, no more contraceptives. This is our home now and I love the<br />place. When our contract is up we can either renew once or stay on Mars and<br />go into business. I already know that The Company and Government are going<br />to sell off most of the real estate in Utopia to developers, businesses and<br />private citizens. If things go as I see them going we will be in on the ground<br />floor of the nicest city in the solar system. Besides I think I would have a lot<br />more difficulty in adjusting to Earth gravity than I had in adjusting to Mars<br />gravity.”<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-47672268285317595922009-04-03T23:06:00.000-07:002009-04-03T23:06:00.724-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 10CHAPTER - Mars Supply One Docks<br />January 15, 2108: The first ship to arrive on Mars since the one that Tim<br />had arrived docked at Mars orbiter. Tim kind of smiled when he saw 35 new<br />faces step off the elevator and start looking at their new home. Of course<br />Walter and Thelma were there to greet them. It wasn't the same as when Tim<br />and Carla's group had arrived. This time the colony was ready for them. Tim<br />and Carter and several other community leaders were conducting the tours.<br />Each couple and single were assigned to a new house that had been<br />constructed for them. The houses had already been furnished with everything<br />they would need from supply except for their phones, and their TV sets, those<br />were still being unloaded. The hours for serving meals had been doubled and<br />a hot meal would be served to everyone, Including the new arrivals. The<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />kitchen staff was a little short handed and there was a need for the new<br />equipment that was arriving on The Mars Supply One but everything still went<br />smoothly. Half of the new people were fed lunch at the Government kitchen<br />and half at The Company kitchen. All of the meals would be handled in this<br />manner until the new equipment had been installed in the Company kitchen.<br />When the new arrivals were shown the house that they had been assigned they<br />were told that they could trade with each other if two of them agreed. The work<br />crews did not have to make three hundred new houses to accommodate the<br />three hundred new people because so many of those who where already there<br />had moved in with each other, there were quite a few vacancies.<br />Fourteen of the Government people that had been on Mars for the term<br />of their contract were returning to Earth but eight who were eligible to return had<br />opted to stay on without a job and become self employed. There had been<br />negotiations, people involved, the Company and the Government. The people<br />who wanted to stay prevailed. The Company and the Government agreed that<br />they could remain as citizens of Mars. They had to reimburse the colony<br />$5,000.00 per month for their board, room and medical care but they were free<br />unemployed citizens of Mars. If these people wanted they could receive a<br />credit of one hundred thousand dollars for not returning to Earth. If they ever<br />decided to return they would be required to pay the prevailing rate for passage.<br />Several others who were eligible to return had extended their contracts for a<br />few more years and remained in their jobs.<br />This time around the new arrivals were given up to a week to become<br />acclimated to their new surroundings before starting to work. Oh my, how<br />things had changed since Tim and Carla had arrived. Tim had been given a<br />week off before starting work but that was so he could build a house. All of the<br />homes, new and existing now had a bathroom with flush toilets and hot and<br />cold running water, electricity and a television receiver. The TV sets for the new<br />arrivals would be issued as soon as they had been unloaded. All of the houses<br />had cement beds that were raised up off the floor with air mattresses on top. All<br />had cement chairs and tables with cushions on the chairs to make them<br />comfortable. They all had cement chests with wooden drawers. These weren't<br />the kinds of houses that people from Earth were accustomed to living in but<br />they were functional.<br />The Company cavern community now had twice the population of the<br />Government community and eight streets had been named. All of the houses<br />had addresses. The Company cavern was beginning to look like a small city.<br />What was lacking was a business community with stores and such, but that<br />would come. An area had been left clear in the center of town for stores that<br />would be opened by the private sector. It was interesting to note that once flush<br />toilets had been installed the stench had gone away. The atmosphere control<br />people had even started introducing a hint off fragrance into the air.<br />The material to equip and open the first private business was being<br />unloaded from Mars Supply One. The Company putting in the business was<br />taking a tremendous loss on the project, one that they knew they could never<br />be recovered but that didn't matter, it was the publicity they were after. They<br />had paid Mars Colony, Inc. one and a half billion dollars for the franchise rights<br />to do business on a one hundred by one hundred square foot lot of leased<br />space on a 20 year lease. For that amount The Company agreed to send six of<br />their employees on Mars Supply One and another six employees on Mars<br />Supply Two. Mars Colony, Inc. agreed to allow this companies employees all<br />rights and privileges that they would receive had they been Mars Colony, Inc.<br />employees, including the right to eat in the Mess Hall and the right to free<br />medical care.<br />On the evening that the ship had arrived with the new employees Tim<br />and Carla were home watching Rusty give the news on MARS-TV-Channel 2.<br />Rusty came on the air and he was really hyped. “Good evening to all of you<br />regular viewers and to you new arrivals also. As you know if you watch this<br />news program on a regular basis I am usually hard pressed to find enough<br />news in the community to fill my half hour slot but not tonight, I have three big<br />stories that just broke today.”<br />“First I would like to introduce you to our two new staff members here at<br />MARS-TV, Folks I want you to meet Clark and Mildred Gibson. They are a<br />married couple and will be working with our staff on our internet project. I know<br />the Mars internet doesn't amount to much with fewer than one hundred web<br />pages but hold on to your seats because here is what is coming in the coming<br />month or so, are you ready for this folks, Earth INTERNET. Here is how it will<br />work. There has been a relay antenna installed on the orbiter that circles Earth<br />and one installed on the one that circles Mars and one each ship, Mars Supply<br />One and Mars Supply Two, one of which is always en route from Earth to Mars.<br />Now since it could take anywhere from 4 minutes to 42 minutes for radio waves<br />to travel between the two planets, depending on where Mars in in its orbit the<br />delay on getting a command executed on the internet would be prohibitive, this<br />is what we have worked out . Besides these two folks here there will be two<br />more employees in Seattle. They will be searching the web and uploading all<br />information websites to Mars on a full time basis. These to people here in the<br />studio with me will be downloading what they send and putting those web<br />pages on Mars internet. The new software that they are using on the Earth end<br />will automatically pick updates to any website that they have already sent and<br />send all updates automatically. In addition to that we are making email<br />accounts that you establish here on Mars, Earth active that is if you send an<br />email to someone on Earth right now they should receive it within the hour and<br />you could have your response within two hours or less. We are putting all Mars<br />email addresses for every person and office on Mars on our Earth website and<br />we are offering a free lookup service that you can use to obtain email address<br />for any business, office or person on Earth that has an email address.” Rusty<br />then introduced and briefly interviewed the two new internet operatives.<br />“The next item concerns this young gentleman sitting here on my right.<br />Tell our viewers, Bob do you work for Mars Colony, Inc.?” “No I don't Rusty, nor<br />do I work for the United States Government. I just arrived here on the Colony<br />today and I am employed in the private sector.” “Why don't you tell our viewers<br />what brings you to Mars, Bob?” “I am here to supervise the construction of our<br />newest outlet. All of the equipment necessary to install our store is being<br />unloaded from Mars Supply One as we speak. Our location should be up and<br />operating shortly after Mars Supply Two arrives in about four months.” “I think<br />our viewers are dying to hear the name of The Company that you work for Bob.”<br />“Rather than just come right out and tell them I will give your viewers a hint, We<br />will be located in the business section of The Company cavern and they will be<br />able to easily find our location, all they will have to do is to look for the big red<br />arches.” “Do you mean that Burger Boy's is coming to Mars?” “Oh Rusty, you<br />guessed it and yes I mean that Burger Boy's will be operating on Mars by the<br />end of May.”<br />“We are not through yet folks, I now want you to meet Abner Jacobs who<br />is also a new arrival today and is an employee of the company. Just what kind<br />of work do you do for The Company Abner?” “There is not just me but I brought<br />along my wife Jennifer and another couple Dan and Sue Yang, we are what you<br />might call farmers but we are specialized in grow light indoor farming. All four of<br />us have masters degrees in Agriculture from University of Alaska, Fairbanks.<br />We specialize in growing plants indoors.” “We have everything that we need to<br />get started farming a one hundred sixty acre parcel of land on the ship,<br />Including a new product that we designed from samples of Mars soil to best<br />convert this soil to support crops, of course we also brought along adequate<br />grow lights, fertilizers and seeds and farm equipment to get a farm in operation<br />within a few months. From then on all of your vegetables will be fresh not<br />canned. We will produce as a byproduct of the vegetables enough food for a<br />sizable heard of goats. The goats will provide milk, other dairy products and<br />meat. Unfortunately Cattle can never be raised on Mars in any quantity, they<br />release too much methane into the atmosphere. Around our crops area we will<br />be planting a variety of fruit trees which will benefit from the grow lights on the<br />crops and eventually produce fresh fruit. I think you will find that our crops are<br />up to ten times as productive as outdoor crops on Earth that grow seasonally.<br />Our crops grow constantly and are extremely productive. We will also be taking<br />over care of your existing animals and will be augmenting them with a dozen<br />young pigs that we have brought from Earth ” Rusty then introduced the other<br />three farmers and interviewed them all together.<br />“I see that our time is up for tonight folks, I hope you have enjoyed<br />tonights news as much as I have enjoyed bringing it to you. Stay tuned now for<br />the nightly news with Keith Edwards Unfortunately this will still be 24 hour<br />delayed.” Sue Yang had responded to several of the questions that Rusty had<br />asked but Dan Just sat there without saying a word. Rusty asked Abner after<br />the show if he had done anything to offend Dan. “Naw,” said Abner “I have<br />been working with Dan Yang for seven years and I have never heard him say<br />much.”<br />January 16, 2108: Tim had a chance encounter with Bob the Hamburger<br />man and ask him how the deal went down that his company was given<br />permission to operate on Mars when the Government and The Company were<br />partners in the space ships and in the land they would be doing business on.<br />“This is what I have heard Tim and mind you that I am not a member of top<br />management of the company. Our company wanted to operate a franchise on<br />Mars for publicity purposes back on Earth and Our company is one of the<br />principals in Mars Colony, Inc. They offered two billion dollars to the<br />Government and The Company for the following: The Mars ships would move<br />all the equipment that we needed to Mars along with twelve employees. The<br />employees would have the same benefits as your company employees and<br />would be on a ten year contract just as, I assume you are. The Company would<br />keep us supplied with food stuffs and supplies that would arrive an all future<br />ships for the next ten years. The Company will construct our business building<br />on a one hundred by one hundred square foot lot in your business district. That<br />is about all I know other than there is not really any profit motive for Our<br />Company but it will provide us with commercials for years to come. Oh there is<br />one more thing, we will not be allowed to charge more for products here than<br />the average price that we charge on Earth.” “That about answered all my<br />questions, Oh yeah, when will the rest of your employees and your food stuffs<br />arrive?” “On the next ship which is due in some time in May of this year, Tim, so<br />I hope our building is ready by then.” “Are you kidding, with all the extra<br />construction guys we have here now they could have sent the employees on<br />this ship. We will have the whole thing wired, plumbed and ready to open in a<br />week. Thanks for the information and I hope you enjoy Mars.”<br />January 17, 2108: Abner Jacobs was busy inspecting the corn crop at<br />the temporary farm when a nondescript construction worker walked up to him<br />and handed him a small match box without saying a word. When Abner opened<br />the box he noticed that it was about half full of little white seeds the size of BB's.<br />Abner knew exactly what these were. Abner just smiled and put the box in his<br />pocket. The construction worker smiled back and walked away, neither of them<br />had said a word.<br />Abner walked out amongst the corn stalks and planted the seeds. He<br />would need to transplant them once they had germinated but for now they<br />needed to be in the soil.<br />January 17, 2108: When Tim showed up at work the next day Carter<br />assigned him to pick out a crew of thirty workers put someone competent in<br />charge and assign them to work for the farmers. Tim gathered the crews<br />together and said “before you start work I need thirty of you to help get the farm<br />set up. I think that prior farm experience might be helpful so if any of you have<br />some farm experience and would like to work for the farmers for a couple<br />weeks or for however long they need you please step over here by me.” About<br />twenty or so moved over behind Tim, “OK now any of you others who would like<br />to construct the farm house the farm lab and the animal pens please form a<br />group over there by the flag pole.” Another thirty moved over by the flag pole.<br />“Sorry folks but I only need ten of you so if you do not have plumbing or wiring<br />experience please return to the main group.” The thirty of them began<br />discussing the matter then all but ten moved back to the main group. “Now you<br />work group leaders take note of how many men you have lost and get together<br />with the other work group leaders and shuffle people around until you have the<br />number you need to go to work on what ever project you were working on last.”<br />That only took five or ten minutes and everyone was happy, Tim liked<br />that management style. He allowing people work where they considered<br />themselves to be most valuable to the project and where they would be<br />happiest. Maybe this management style wouldn't work with the class of people<br />that you have working construction jobs on Earth but it sure works out well here.<br />Tim addressed the two work groups and said “The new farm is going to be just<br />over the bridge at the back of The Company cavern. The area is a little over<br />three hundred twenty acres but will help keep the farm and animals all in one<br />place. It will also leave plenty of room for the house and barn and lab. I think<br />you might have to wall off the generator to keep the noise from disturbing the<br />farmers and the animals. Other than that the rest is up to the farmers. Put<br />everything where they want it and do everything they ask of you.” About then<br />Abner and Jennifer showed up and Tim gave them the layout. “We think the<br />farm should have this whole area from the river and lake to the back wall of the<br />cavern.” Tim told them. These forty construction people will do what ever you<br />ask of them to help in getting the farm set up and equipped. These thirty have<br />some farm experience, the other ten will construct your buildings. At that point<br />he introduced Abner and Jennifer to the workers and then said “Go to work.”<br />Tim stepped back and saw Abner begin talking with the volunteers explaining<br />everything that he would need to have done. One of the construction people<br />asked Abner to come with him. He would show them where to find the tools<br />and equipment they would need in the supply yard. “All of it may not be<br />unloaded yet but we can take what there is and start moving it over to the<br />farm..” Before Tim left he told Abner that if he needed anything or if he needed<br />more help with a big job to let him know and he would send more workers. It<br />now seemed to Tim that workers were the only thing on Mars that was not in<br />short supply.<br />There were other things that had been provided for the farm, the most<br />important of which was six large box hives of honey bees to pollinate the plants<br />and to provide the colonists with fresh honey. There was also an assortment of<br />caterpillars and even four small mulberry trees that were covered with silkworm<br />cocoons when the ship left Earth but by the time they arrived on Mars the<br />cocoons had hatched into silkworm larva.<br />Shortly after Tim left Abner was unpacking packets of seeds when he<br />came across a package of seeds labeled Ivy. Abner didn't even know there was<br />such a thing as Ivy seeds. He tore open the envelope and found, not seeds but<br />tiny dried roots. Not knowing what else to do with them and failing to appreciate<br />their benefit he scooped up a shovel full of fertile soil and planted them in the<br />corner where the generator wall met the cavern wall. By the next day Abner<br />had forgotten all about the Ivy. Seeing the fertile soil and noting the<br />depressions Abner had made with his finger when he planted the roots Sue<br />Yang shrugged, went over to the lake, scooped up some a bucket of water and<br />poured a little on the spot, figuring Abner was trying something and had been<br />distracted before he had watered it. The next day Sue Yang poured a little<br />more water out of the bucket onto the soil. By the time the bucket was empty<br />there were little green shoots sticking out of the ground. The odd thing about<br />this was that there were no grow lights shining directly on the area where the<br />shoots were coming up just the ordinary cave lighting and where these plants<br />were coming up there wasn't even much of that. Sue Yang then went and got<br />Abner and showed him the shoots. “These shoots are growing without the<br />benefit of grow lights, Abner, whatever you were trying here worked,<br />congratulations.” Abner had to pause and think just what he had planted there,<br />then he remembered the Ivy. “Oh, yeah, Sue, I thought I would try some Ivy,<br />there was a package of dried Ivy cuttings in among the vegetable seeds that I<br />had ordered rather than to just throw them away I stuck them in the ground over<br />here then I got busy and forgot all about them.” “Do you realize the significance<br />of this Abner? We have come up with a plant that we can grow anywhere in the<br />caverns. True you can't eat Ivy but you can sure breath it's byproduct. Ivy<br />spreads like crab grass so if we were to plant it everywhere it would grow<br />everywhere. It is nice to look at and the plants will enrich our atmosphere<br />immensely once they take hold.” Abner called Tim and asked him to drop by the<br />farm next time he was in the area.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-82446549512067629972009-04-02T21:44:00.000-07:002009-04-02T21:44:01.088-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 9CHAPTER – Cupid at work JANUARY 2108<br />So many people that had come to Mars as singles were now couples.<br />Archy had started performing weddings although there was no place on Mars to<br />obtain a marriage license and Archy was not an ordained clergyman. What the<br />hell that is the closest they could get, so after the ceremony they just started<br />living in sin, so what.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />Walter and Thelma took all this into consideration and decided to set up<br />a court house to start issuing marriage licenses. Little did they realize at the<br />time that within the year they would be issuing birth certificate's also. A walled<br />enclosure was erected and a sign hung over the entrance that read Court<br />House. One of the women on Walter's staff that did computer input was<br />assigned to move her desk over to the court house and use the computer to<br />print marriage licenses which Walter signed. As it turned out about half of those<br />that Archy had married didn't even want a marriage license. This was the hot<br />topic on talk radio for over a week.<br />That evening Carla said to Tim, “I have been listening to talk radio, quite<br />a lot, lately,” then she remarked to Tim, “How can folks get so excited over the<br />most inane things on that talk radio station?” Tim thought for a moment then<br />responded, “I think that all of us have just so much attention span to use up<br />every day, here in these caverns there is really very little of any importance to<br />spend our attention on. It is not possible for talk radio to not talk about<br />anything, so they just pick the most interesting of all the uninteresting things<br />they have to choose from and discuss that. It's like that movie we saw the other<br />night where the guy was in solitary confinement and had nothing to spend his<br />attention allotment on, then he spotted a roach in the corner of his cell and<br />spent all his time watching the antics of that stupid roach, he would watch it for<br />hours on end, remember”. “Well, no matter, I will probably keep listening to talk<br />radio, and even calling in on occasion.”<br />Back to the matter of alcohol. Since The Company furnished them<br />canned vegetables and since The Company didn't furnish liquor it only made<br />sense to use what growing capacity that they had to produce their own alcohol.<br />Rusty at MARS-TV held a discussion on the news and invited listeners to call in<br />whether they wanted to sacrifice their fresh veggies for booze or not. The call<br />ins were about fifteen to one in favor of booze. So as each veggie crop was<br />harvested the crop was replaced with corn. A couple guys who worked<br />construction were from a part of the country where it was still common to set up<br />a still and produce their own liquor. You could even get a permit to do that if it<br />was for your own consumption. Both of these gentlemen claimed to be experts<br />so they were unofficially appointed to head up that project. They scoured the<br />facility in search of copper tubing and the other materials they would need.<br />They came up with everything they needed and constructed the first still on<br />Mars. There would still be a lack of casks for aging but that would not be much<br />of a problem. Nobody would want to wait for it to age anyway. The early<br />batches would lacked that nice brown color that one associates with good<br />whiskey but it would serve to make Saturday nights a lot more fun.<br />One Sunday morning early in 2108 Tim and Carla were out for a walk<br />when they came across Archy holding services for a dozen or so faithful. The<br />service was about over so Tim and Carla listened to the conclusion of Archie's<br />sermon. They didn't know much about religion but Archy sure seemed to know<br />what he was talking about. He sounded very professional. When the service<br />ended Archie approached them and asked Tim if he would help build a<br />community church. “Sure Archy but we would have to clear it with Walter and<br />Thelma. The next time he spoke with Thelma he brought the subject of a<br />church up for discussion. “Oh, you know how the Government and The<br />Company are about spending any money for the benefit of any particular<br />religious group so we would have to call it a community chapel and claim that<br />we needed it for weddings and funerals. I am not aware of any funerals coming<br />up but I know of more than a dozen weddings that are being planned.” Tim said,<br />I could request Rusty to ask for volunteers on the nightly news to have those<br />interested volunteer their time next Sunday to help build the Church, er a I<br />mean Community Chapel.” “Not necessary said Thelma, if The Company and<br />the Government approve the Chapel we can build it on company time with<br />company materials and even order a few items like pews sent up from Earth.<br />By the way, Tim do we have a pastor?” “Well sort of, one of our construction<br />workers is a lay minister. I have heard one of his sermons and he sounds very<br />professional. I don't know what religion he represents but maybe he could be<br />persuaded to conduct his services interdenominational.”<br />Thelma got her permission for the chapel all right but the Government<br />representative that she talked to in Washington said Oh, my god, we forgot all<br />about that. With the population that you have now you would be entitled to<br />three chapels and three chaplains. Watch the next ship Thelma you may be<br />getting a priest a minister and a rabbi.” Archy was not too pleased when he<br />heard all this but just shrugged and said maybe the protestant minister will let<br />me preach one day a week, that would be fine with me.”<br />The company had been speaking with Carter and Walter and Thelma<br />and were assured that the colony was prepared to receive a new batch of<br />workers. “We are a lot better prepared now to receive three hundred new<br />workers than we were when you sent the last batch she said. Besides the<br />assigned work is pretty well caught up with now and Carter wants to start<br />sealing the big cavern as soon as possible after breakthrough. Maybe you<br />could send three hundred new workers on each ship until further notice. When<br />we start on the big cavern we will need all the help we can get, it is going to be<br />a big job to seal and pressurize that baby.” A few minutes later another<br />message was received from the Company “It's a good thing that you said that<br />Thelma because on the ship that is due to arrive in January there are three<br />hundred more employees. Most of them will be construction workers but there<br />will also be some surprises for you.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-77861287415780274012009-04-01T21:41:00.000-07:002009-04-01T21:41:00.512-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 8CHAPTER – New Years 2108<br />The workers in the colony had planned a gala celebration for new years<br />eve. It was new years on Earth but who knows what it is on Mars. That didn't<br />matter these folks had always celebrated new years and this would be no<br />exception. When Tim arrived at the colony there was a group of Government<br />employees that had organized a little Country and Western band and were<br />entertaining from time to time when people gathered. They even played on<br />Saturday evenings at the mess hall dining room and many couples and singles<br />went over there to dance.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />Some of the Government employees, like Paul had done had figured out<br />ways to get some booze shipped in. It was against company and Government<br />policy which tended to make it very expensive, but the ones who had been<br />there for a while had their ways. A few folks always had a few drinks on<br />Saturday evening at the mess hall.<br />Not to be out done several of the people who had arrived with Tim had<br />also formed musical groups. There was one that played pop music and another<br />what was also country and western. Each of these groups had made at least<br />one appearance at the Saturday night dance and all three bands had their own<br />shows on a different night of the week on MARS-TV.<br />All three bands played in the two mess hall dining rooms, rotating from<br />one to the other. Almost everyone celebrated at one place or the other. They<br />enjoyed the music, danced and generally had a good time they even counted<br />down the last ten seconds of 2107 and everyone was kissing everyone else and<br />someone shouted “This is January 1, 2108.”<br />___________ JANUARY 2108 _____________<br />Still there was something missing, alcohol. Oh for sure there were a few<br />that did not drink, and would not drink but very few. The Company had not<br />hired anybody that was a recovering alcoholic or had ever had a drunk driving<br />arrest. So many times on Mars the demography of the population raised it's<br />ugly head. The strangest thing about living on this planet was the fact that there<br />was no old people and no children and no babies and no one who did not speak<br />good English. That had never been driven home more than at the new years<br />celebration. Even though there were no alcoholics among the population more<br />than ninety percent of them missed not having a drink on New Years eve. They<br />had their ten second count down to usher in the new year, but some how it<br />didn't seem the same.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-33991263897002100912009-03-31T21:39:00.000-07:002009-03-31T21:39:01.245-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 7CHAPTER – Their first Christmas on Mars<br />Their first Christmas on Mars was something to behold. Of course they<br />had no trees, even artificial trees other than one artificial tree that had been<br />sent up by the Government two or three years back and was looking kind of dog<br />eared. They didn't have any factory made decorations except for those sent by<br />the Government to decorate that one lonely tree. Everyone fashioned every day<br />items and made their own decorations. One couple who's hobby was wood<br />carving drew out enough wood from supply to carve a nativity scene. Archy<br />organized a choir of carolers. For the week leading up to Christmas they<br />roamed the facility for about an hour every evening singing carols<br />Gift giving was the hardest part but everyone came up with some sort of<br />original idea as to what to give and to who and how to wrap it. A lot of unique<br />ideas went into that part of the holiday. Carla baked Tim a batch of chocolate<br />chip cookies in the kitchen and wrapped them in foil. Tim was stuck, he couldn't<br />think of a thing to give Carla, then he remembered the rocks he had picked out<br />of the mud when he was drilling the well. He picked out a middle sized rock<br />that he thought was the prettiest, it was about the size of a Roma tomato. He<br />wrapped it in a blue paper towel and tied a red string around the top.<br />They went to a special Christmas dinner on the evening of the 24th.<br />Carla had arranged to have the evening off. After dinner they returned to their<br />little house and exchanged gifts. Tim was especially pleased with the cookies<br />and felt a little bad that he hadn't gotten something better for Carla than that<br />ugly rock.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />When Carla opened her gift her eye's opened wide and her mouth<br />dropped open and she gasp two or three times to get her breath. “Tim, where<br />on Earth did you find this? I didn't find it on Earth Carla I found it on Mars.” “Well<br />unless I am terribly mistaken this is about a three ounce uncut diamond. It<br />could be worth almost a million dollars on Earth. Then Tim's mouth dropped<br />open and they just sat there for a minute looking into each other's mouths.<br />“Were there any more of these where you found this one,” Carla stammered.<br />“Yeah, I have a whole bag of them, altogether maybe five or six pounds. He<br />retrieved the bag from amongst his belongings and emptied the contents onto<br />the table. Carla just sat there and kept saying “Oh, my God.” “Oh, my God.”<br />over and over. If these are diamonds and I am almost sure that they are do you<br />have any idea of their value? Maybe millions and possibly even over a billion<br />dollars, once they are cut and polished, that's billion with a B.”<br />If that is the case Carla they won't be worth anything if their existence<br />becomes common knowledge. Carla said, “wait a minute, I met a man here on<br />Mars, one of the scientists who's father is a jeweler and diamond cutter. My<br />acquaintance, Paul Silverman, said that his father was teaching him the trade<br />but Paul said he wasn't interested and went to MIT where got a PHD in Math<br />instead. Paul, or rather Dr. Silverman is a Government employee. I think we<br />better get him on this anyway and see what he has to say. Tim chuckled and<br />said “ if Silverman means what I think it means he won't have anything to do on<br />Christmas Eve anyway and it is still early, so I can't resist I am going to give him<br />a call.”<br />“Hello, this is Paul.” “You don't know me Dr. but you may know my wife<br />Carla, Erkin that works in the kitchen, my name is Tim Erkin I am her husband<br />and I work in construction. The reason that I am calling is that I found some<br />unusual rocks the other day and Carla thinks you ought to see them and maybe<br />identify them for us.” “Yes Tim I know who your wife is, lovely girl, you are a very<br />lucky man. Certainly I will be happy to look at your find and identify the stones<br />for you, please bring them by anytime.” “How about now Dr. are you busy.”<br />“Well I am watching a movie on TV but I guess I could put that on record when<br />you get here. I live at 850 Broadway and I'll be expecting you and your lovely<br />wife. Tim put the stones back in the bag and they were outside Dr. Silverman's<br />entrance iwithin five minutes. Come on in, folks and show me what you have<br />found that you are so curious about. After shaking hands, Tim reached into his<br />bag and pulled out a small stone at random and handed it to Dr. Silverman.”<br />The good doctor's mouth dropped open and all he could say was “Oh, my God.”<br />“Oh, my God.” over and over. “I had the same reaction Paul but I wasn't sure,<br />you have just confirmed it.” “Could I see the other stones please Tim?” At which<br />point Tim emptied the contents of the bag on Paul's table. Paul took his<br />eyepiece from a desk drawer, sat down and began to examine Tims find piece<br />by piece.<br />He selected one with a sharp edge then picked a cut gem that he had<br />been working with. Paul explained that making jewelry was his hobby. “ I make<br />up items here and then send them back on the next ship to my family who sell<br />them for me and deposit the money in my account. I don't know whether you<br />knew it or not but it is free to send things back to Earth as the ships are all<br />returning empty anyway.” Paul then took the stone and made a sharp cut into<br />the faceted stone that he had picked up off his workbench. It is seven in<br />hardness he said. He then held the stone up to the light and studied it as far as<br />I can tell this is a perfect stone., he announced. Paul then put it on a scales,<br />this particular stone weighs in at 4.2 oz or roughly 441 carats. Paul then put the<br />whole collection on his scales, the combined weight was 12.5 pounds, or about<br />21,000 carats. You would loose about half in cutting. If you just cut them into<br />one carat stones you would realize about 10,500 one carat perfect diamonds<br />currently selling at $2,700.00. These would retail at about 28.5 million dollars.<br />If I cut and polish and market them for you my family and I would take 75% of<br />the retail value. Understand that my family does not deal in retail. We are<br />wholesalers only. But doing it that way you would still have over 7.5 million for<br />your share. We are going to do better than that though I am going to sell some<br />of these as two carat stones, some as three carat some even as larger stones.<br />My family frequently deals in very large stones which are worth far more per<br />carat. Your share could easily come out to between 15 and 20 million dollars.<br />“Come, you two sit over here and lets talk. Would you care for a<br />brandy?, I have it sent up from Earth and I have never offered anyone else a<br />drink of it before because it is too expensive, but this, this is an occasion that<br />deserves a whole bottle of brandy. “Sure Paul, I haven't had a drink in a long<br />time and I think you might be right, this is worth it.”<br />Once they had their drinks Paul started. “Here is our problem, the way I<br />see it. If we are not very careful we could ruin the diamond market on Earth if<br />word of these stones got out. Diamonds themselves have only their industrial<br />value which would make these stones here worth only a few thousand dollars.<br />What diamonds do have above and beyond their intrinsic value is their<br />perceived value. If the market collectively perceives that are worth fifty million<br />dollars then we can sell them for twenty five million. If the market were to<br />perceive that they were worthless as jewels then they would have only their<br />industrial value.<br />I have the equipment here on Mars to cleave them cut them and mount<br />them. I have been on Mars for only two years now and I have eight years left<br />on my contract before I can return to Earth. We must never let anyone know<br />that these stones are from Mars or like I said the Diamond market on Earth<br />could collapse. It is only the law of supply and demand that supports the<br />market. Even the big diamond mines in Africa and elsewhere withhold stones<br />from the market in order to maximize their price. I could cut a one hundred<br />million dollar diamond out of that grapefruit you have there but what would I do<br />with it. No such diamond presently exists and someone would catch on once<br />my Martian background came to light. Here is what I propose. I should cut<br />most of these stones right here into large but imperfect facets. Then mount<br />them in unattractive silver jewelry and send them to my family on Earth. I will<br />instruct them to open new Swiss bank accounts one for you and Carla and one<br />for me. They will then rework the stones and melt down the settings which they<br />will send back to me as bulk silver. They are dealers so they will have little<br />difficulty in marketing the stones, they will keep half the proceeds from the sale<br />of the stones and deposit one half of the other half of the money into each of<br />our accounts. You can trust them they are my family and my family has been<br />making their living in this trade for over two hundred years, they and I are<br />ascetic Jews . Because of the sensitive nature of our family business no one of<br />us have ever cheated another of us not even once in that whole two hundred<br />years. We have had to set our moral values that high because we have had to<br />prosper under hostile governments in order to survive. If there was ever a<br />business where a man's word was his bond, it is this business. Even though I<br />am a PHD in math which has irked my family to no end I still can't get this stupid<br />business out of my life, I was born and raised in it and even came to Mars to get<br />away from the stigma that goes along with this business and my religious<br />lifestyle but here I sit in my spare time working with these damned stones.”<br />Tim took Carla by the hand and pulled her toward the door. “Excuse us a<br />minute Paul we have to talk.” Outside, Tim told Carla, I know about these<br />people, they are very clannish, and what he says about trust is absolutely<br />correct, hell these people even survived and did business during the Holocaust,<br />in Nazi Germany when all the other Jews were sent off to the concentration<br />camps. I say we go for it. I can always get more stones from where I got these<br />so we have almost nothing invested.” “Sure Tim it sounds like a win, win<br />situation, let's go for it.”<br />In the days that passed they maintained only a nodding relationship with<br />Paul. On one occasion several weeks later he told Carla “Come by the house<br />this evening there is something I want to show you. That evening Tim and<br />Carla went over to see Paul after dark. Once inside Paul poured out the<br />contents of a velvet pouch onto a velvet pad. There were almost 20 cut<br />diamonds. They looked large but irregular. “Look, these are all the product of<br />one of your smaller stones. Since I am being particular when I cleave them but<br />intentionally clumsy when I cut and polish them I am able to turn one of these<br />out at approximately one per day. These are all six to eight carrot perfect<br />diamonds. By the time my relatives on Earth finish with them we should each<br />receive approximately five hundred thousand dollars. I just have time before<br />the next ship to Earth leaves to make some ugly cheap jewelry to mount them<br />in to make them look like dime store stuff to the untrained eye. I will be sending<br />a shipment like this out on every ship for the next several years. I will give you<br />your numbered account information as soon as I have it. Aside from that you<br />are just going to have to trust me and my family until you return to Earth.<br />The next evening Tim and Carla were discussing their situation.<br />“According to what Paul has told us we are going to have more money in<br />Switzerland when we get back than we have in the United States, Carla.” “I am<br />still a little uneasy about that Tim, that's an awful lot of money and those<br />relatives of Paul's will have our account number.” Not this next ship but within<br />the year I want to post a letter to our Trustee and have him make periodic<br />withdrawals from our Swiss account and deposit the money in our trust account<br />at the bank. Then I want to order him to begin a regular stock purchase<br />program of acquiring shares in Mars Colony, Inc.” “I can see having him deposit<br />the money in our trust account but why would you want shares in Mars Colony,<br />Inc. They have never turned a profit and they never will.” I made some inquiries<br />about The Company before we left. It seems that 20 of the 25 richest<br />individuals and corporations on Earth are behind it. They each put up one<br />Billion in seed money to get The Company going. So far they have gone<br />through that 20 billion and the investors have already kicked in another billion<br />each and you are right The Company has yet to make a dime. Here is what I<br />think, The Company has arranged to take title to Most of Mars. I suspect, they<br />already have title to everything that is here except the Government cavern, and<br />they are just using the taxpayers and the Government to help them with<br />development expenses. Carla within a year we are going to be taming a cavern<br />as large as a U.S. State and The Company will own it all. I have also<br />considered the possibility that The Company already knows about the diamonds<br />but they don't want to destroy the diamond market either. It's a fluke for me to<br />have stumbled on to the ones I found, we were drilling with Water pressure<br />because our drill bit wasn't working and the diamonds that I picked up were<br />forced up with the mud. I didn't even know what they were but they fascinated<br />me and I figured they were worth picking up. We used that slag to finish up<br />around the hole and to mount the generator on, I would imagine there is as<br />many diamonds that I did not pick up as there were those that I did pick up.<br />Eventually we will be closing that generator down and then I will have a chance<br />to go through the rest of that mud. In the meantime those diamonds are safe<br />and secure and I wouldn't want to do anything that looked suspicious, we can<br />afford to let them lay there for two or three years. I will go over and poke<br />around near the surface in a couple months like I am checking up on how our<br />installation is holding up. If any are near the surface I of course will pick them<br />up.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-74537032952893679112009-03-30T21:35:00.000-07:002009-03-30T21:35:00.256-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 6CHAPTER – The Food on Mars<br />October 5, 2107: Besides the ever present mushrooms the colony also<br />raised chickens, rabbits, turkeys, ducks and geese. There was a small heard of<br />goats but there wasn't enough for them to graze on. They produced a little milk<br />but Tim never knew what happened to that. There certainly wouldn't have been<br />enough to go around. Once in a while they would butcher a kid but Tim never<br />found out who got the meat, he suspected the kitchen staff as there would not<br />be enough fresh meat to go around either. They were getting enough frozen<br />meat from Earth to flavor their food but they seldom if ever had steak or roast<br />beef or any plain meat dish even hamburger. There always seemed to be<br />bacon sausage and once in a while, ham.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />Tim looked up the two guys from the Scientific crew that were working<br />with the small experimental garden and ask them what all it would take to grow<br />enough vegetables to meet the needs of the community of now over six<br />hundred people. After some discussion the finally decided that they would need<br />about 160 acres of fertile irrigated land with adequate grow lights to raise<br />everything they needed.<br />In the early part of the twenty first century in the United States the rule of<br />thumb had been that it took one acre per person to provide food to the country.<br />Around 2025 The United States changed from a net food exporting country to a<br />net food importing country. In response to this development farmers became a<br />lot more efficient at food production. By 2107 the ratio had been reduced to half<br />an acre per person. Thanks largely to the more extensive use of hot houses for<br />growing vegetables. On Earth the growing season for most foods was still<br />seasonal. On Mars there were no seasons and all food could be grown year<br />around and around the clock. That meant that on Mars the ratio would be about<br />one quarter acre per person. That included the room that the animals required.<br />Tim had in mind that the entire area on the Company cavern behind the lake<br />and stream, which was approximately 320 acres would be the ideal place for<br />the farm. That would provide all the land that they would need to easily feed a<br />population of one thousand people. By the time that the population exceeded<br />one thousand they would have more land because more caverns would be<br />opened. Tim got a list of the fertilizers that would be needed to bring the<br />Martian soil to life and keep it producing for one year. They then worked out<br />just how many grow lights they would need to run a hothouse of that size. The<br />results were staggering but undaunted Tim spent his next day off working out a<br />requisition for the needed material and an estimate of how much was spent by<br />The Company and the Government to provide the community with canned<br />produce that nobody enjoyed eating. In his equation he allowed for six full time<br />gardeners. The conclusion reached is that it would be cheaper to raise their<br />own vegetables on Mars, a lot cheaper.<br />The next morning before work he gave a copy of his findings to Carter<br />and another copy to Thelma. The report was well received on Mars . Walter<br />and Thelma submitted an edited copy of Tim's report to The Company and the<br />government. Everyone agreed that was what should be done but they knew the<br />schedule and knew it would be about seven months before the requisitioned<br />items would arrive. They would just have to continue eating canned vegetables<br />until then.<br />October 5, 2107: Message received from Company on Earth. We have<br />planned a farm on Mars all along. Knowing you would have adequate electricity<br />soon we have already shipped your farm supplies, grow lights, equipment and<br />four farmers. They are now en route on Mars Supply Two and should arrive<br />around January 15, 2108.<br />October 10, 2107: Not completely satisfied with that Tim and Carter<br />gathered up all the grow lights they had and all the other lights that could be<br />converted to grow lights. They then cleaned out the goat pen, the rabbit pens<br />and the chicken pens and were able to set up a two acre test farm in The<br />Company cavern. Some of the people with gardening experience volunteered<br />and two of them were assigned as full time farmers.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-63297950806235063712009-03-29T21:31:00.000-07:002009-03-30T00:30:38.869-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 5<span style="font-weight: bold;">CHAPTER - Tim drills a well</span><br />September 30, 2107: That morning, Tim selected his crew and they went<br />to work. They scavenged part of what they needed and jury rigged the rest.<br />They did have some shaft and a drill head, they converted the u-joint and motor<br />from an old fork lift to be mounted on the platform and turn the shaft. By the<br />end of the day they had tested all the equipment and had drilled a hole twelve<br />inches in diameter and about three feet deep.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />October 1, 2107: (from Tim's notes}”This morning we started drilling in<br />earnest but it is not going very well, the drill head keeps binding up and<br />something we are trying to drill through keeps dulling our drill head so that it has<br />to be resharpened every few feet. We have obtained a high pressure pump<br />and a fire hose. We keep washing the clay from the drill bit with the nozzle of<br />the hose before it can be resharpened. I had an idea, we removed the drill bit<br />and ran the fire hose through the shaft and gave it full power. The soft clay<br />began to liquefy and bubble to the top. I noticed small rocks ranging is size<br />from the size of walnuts to the size of apples being forced up to the surface. I<br />figured we must be drilling through an ancient lava flow. I picked up the rocks<br />that were being forced to the surface and threw them into a wheelbarrow. We<br />were down almost 50 feet and the thermometer indicated that the temperature<br />was up to two hundred fifty degrees. We needed around one thousand degrees<br />to obtain sufficient conversion steam to turn a generator the size of the one we<br />intended to mount and make electricity. That afternoon when the crew went off<br />duty my curiosity was getting the best of me so I went over to the lake and<br />rinsed off the rocks I had collected. They looked kind of pretty so I put them in a<br />canvas bag and took them to my quarters. I didn't know at the time what I<br />would eventually use them for but on Mars you can find a use for everything.<br />Maybe I could mount them in concrete and use them to decorate around our<br />front door someday.”<br />The talk radio announcer who called himself Harry Martian broke in to<br />the music stations to announce that drilling had started for the hole that would<br />enable the new geothermal generator. Tim had his ear piece radio on the talk<br />station and was amused at the different spins that the listeners put on the<br />project. A couple callers feared that what they were doing could cause a<br />volcano to erupt in The Company cavern. Actually, thought Tim, that would be a<br />possibility. Tim found himself thinking about that possibility the rest of the day.<br />After work Tim looked up the scientist he had met named George Schultz, and<br />asked him what he thought. George said, “you don't need to worry at all about<br />your drilling effort causing a volcano,” “How can you be so sure?” “I am not at all<br />sure that it won't, Tim but if it does you won't have long to worry about it.”<br />Somehow Tim did not feel at all reassured.<br />October 2, 2107: ( from Tims notes) We reached a depth of 60 feet and<br />were getting a temperature of over six hundred degrees. We continued on<br />slowly until at just under one hundred feet we were getting the one thousand<br />degrees that we needed. We withdrew the hose and sank a blade that I had<br />found in the supply yard that enlarged the hole to a three foot circumference.<br />We then started inserting a double 6” pipe joined at the bottom by a U shaped<br />fitting.<br />When the U at the bottom connecting our two pipes reached five<br />hundred degrees we began to pump the cold water from the lake into one of the<br />pipes. Hot water began to spew from the other so we connected a hose to the<br />end where the hot watter was bubbling out and fed that into the lake. We were<br />taking our cold water from the headwater of the stream just below the falls. By<br />this time another crew had mounted the generator on cement blocks so we<br />connected the out hose to the generator and ran the exhaust water hose from<br />the generator into the lake. We then powered up the generator and it began to<br />pump water into the lake. We then eased the dual pipes deeper into the hole.<br />Shortly we had raw steam flowing into the generator and the fan began to turn.<br />While we were busy with these tasks the electrical crew had wired the<br />generator into the electrical system and the power began to flow. Once the<br />pipes were at the bottom of the hole we aliened the pipe from the generator to<br />line up with the output pipe and cut the motor forcing the cold water into the<br />pipe. We didn't have long to make the connection before the U at the bottom of<br />the pipe would melt. When the live steam diminished enough that we could<br />handle it in a Mars suit one of the men connected the live steam pipe directly to<br />the generator and we restarted the pump sending the cold river water into the<br />ground. On most steam generation systems the water is cooled and recycled<br />but in this case we needed to heat the water in the stream and the lake so we<br />are constantly drawing cold water from the headwater just below the falls and<br />depositing it back into the stream about thirty feet down river. This should be<br />adequate to heat the stream and lake to a temperature that can accommodate<br />trout and even catfish. We were generating close to thirty megawatts of power<br />and it was up to the electricians to route it throughout the facility and put it to<br />use. I don't know how much thirty megawatts is but they tell me it will be all the<br />electricity we will need until for some time to come.<br />That evening everything in the caverns seemed to burn a little brighter.<br />We left the old diesel generator hooked up as a backup system but we had quit<br />running it.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4976577139290601988.post-90252141301386970452009-03-28T21:29:00.000-07:002009-03-30T00:30:03.246-07:00A Colony On Mars : Chapter 4<span style="font-weight: bold;">CHAPTER - The early days</span><br />Carla had to report to the kitchen at 0430 to fix breakfast but Tim had six<br />days off to build his house and get things set up for temporary living. “Only one<br />blanket and we don't know how cold it gets here at night Carla said, I wonder if<br />we are going to get cold.?” “There is a question that I can answer, said Tim and<br />the answer is no. These caverns are maintained at a constant 73 degrees, year<br />round, you will never be cold and you will never need a coat. Carla took her<br />bag of toiletries and headed for the public rest room. The place was busy but<br />she had little trouble in finding an open shower stall. Surprise it worked just like<br />the showers on the ship. After her shower she found an open wash basin with<br />a large mirror where she finished her toiletries and returned to her camp. She<br />returned about the same time as Tim. They donned their night clothes, inflated<br />their mattress by pulling the well marked tabs and crawled in to bed to spend<br />their first night on Mars. March 28, had been a very busy day, indeed. The<br />lights in the Cavern went out promptly at 2200 everything quieted down and<br />they both fell asleep almost immediately.<br /><div class="fullpost"><br />September 29, 2107: Carla's phone rang at 0400, Carla located her<br />phone and fumbled with her watch before she located the button. She notice<br />that the button was back lit and blinking so she pushed it. Hi Carla, this is<br />Hilda, I am just calling the members of my crew that are assigned to prepare<br />breakfast. I didn't know whether you had an alarm clock working yet or not.<br />You need to report to the kitchen in 30, minutes to help prepare breakfast.” “Oh,<br />thanks Hilda, and you were right, I didn't have my alarm clock working yet. I'll<br />see you then.” She then pushed the button that had started blinking again when<br />Hilda hung up. And crawled out of bed. Tim just groaned. After a visit to the<br />public wash room Carla got dressed and went over to the kitchen.<br />Hilda was there there to set her to her tasks. By 0600 people began to<br />pour in and breakfast came off smoothly. This morning the kitchen was serving<br />oatmeal and toast with canned fruit. Tim received a call just as he was finishing<br />his breakfast at 0645, asking him to report to The Company cavern at 0700 or<br />as soon thereafter as he could make it. Carla couldn't help but notice how<br />many people had their ear pieces in and were moving to one kind of music or<br />another. After a while you will even learn how to tell which station they are<br />listening to by just watching them,” one of the other kitchen workers said, “If<br />they are really grooving then that means they are listening to pop. If they have<br />a serene expression on their face they are listening to the elevator music, If<br />they look sad it's C&W, and if they look as though they are listening to a<br />conversation then they got the talk station on. I make a game of trying to<br />guess. Most often they are listening to talk radio, that's the most popular.”<br />Tim arrived at work at 0650 and struck up a conversation with Jack<br />Overmeye. “Did you notice that it is warmer in this cavern than in the<br />Government cavern, Tim?” “Nope, I haven't been in here enough to pay it much<br />attention.” “I spent the night in here last night and had to throw my blanket off,<br />when I got up to go to the bathroom I noticed that it felt chilly in the other<br />cavern, so this morning I went around feeling all the walls and in the far back<br />and off to your right there is a hot spot that you can't hold your hand of for long.<br />I then checked the floor beneath the hot spot and found that to be even hotter.”<br />Just then Carter Fredrick, facilities superintendent joined them and Jack<br />related what he had observed to him.”Show me that spot Jack.” The three men<br />skipped to the back of the cavern and Jack said, “OK, now put your hand right<br />there.” Sure enough Carter didn't leave it there for long. “Now check the floor<br />right here below the hot spot,” Carter put his hand on the floor for an instant<br />then removed quickly and began to check it for damage. “All right after I get all<br />the crews busy I will consult the scientists about drilling right here.” The three of<br />them skipped back to where the other construction workers were gathered.<br />Carter had work assignments based on the crew lists from the ship. “I am<br />assigning you people to the same crews that you had on the ship for now but<br />feel free to change crews if you see another crew doing a job that you have<br />some expertise in. The tools and supplies that you will need can be picked up<br />in the supply area of the Government cavern. At that point he handed out a list<br />of assignments for each group. “My name is Carter, I have been heading up<br />the one crew that has been working here for over two years. I have assigned<br />one of my people to each crew because they know how to find stuff, they are<br />not the crew foremen but each of them has a lot of good information that he can<br />share. Since each of the crews have been together for the last couple months I<br />imagine that you have a pretty good idea of who you would like to see as your<br />crew chief, so I would like for each crew to informally pick one of your own and<br />give me the name so I can make a note of who to call on if I need to contact<br />your crew. We will figure out a better system later on.”<br />In addition to working on your crew we have a work order board in the<br />Government cavern, it is posted in front of the supply room. You should check<br />the board every morning or evening when you are off duty. If there is a work<br />request posted that you believe that you have the necessary skills for you<br />should remove the thumb tack and remove the request. Notify your crew chief<br />before starting work for the day that you have the work request then handle that<br />first before catching up with your crew. In that way all requests for repairs or<br />improvements needed by the members of the community will be handled<br />promptly. If there are still any requests on the board when I come over to hold<br />muster I will bring them in with me and assign the job to a volunteer.<br />With that the crews all had a little meeting to pick their crew chief. Crew<br />six actually held an election and elected the guy who had been on Mars before<br />they arrived yesterday. Each of the crew chief's came up to Carter and gave<br />him the name of the person selected. Then they all went right to work,<br />assembling the tools and supplies they would need.<br />The people on Crew eleven assembled and all eyes turned to Tim. One<br />of the men said “You are the one with the engineering degree Tim, I can say<br />that you helped me a lot during training, explaining the technical stuff behind<br />what the instructor had told us. I nominate Tim Erkin to be our foreman, any<br />seconds,” everybody seconded the motion so they didn't need an election, Tim<br />was elected. Tim went over to where Carter was standing and told him “Crew<br />eleven selected Tim Erkin.” Carter just circled the name on the list and said<br />“Thanks.”<br />Some crews were working topside making cement blocks, some were<br />picking up blocks that were already cured and started building public rooms like<br />the dining room, kitchen and public bath rooms. Some went to work laying in a<br />water line, to the kitchen, while another crew installed the reverse osmosis<br />system, where the water from the river entered the cavern above the falls.<br />Some were running temporary wiring in from the diesel generator that was<br />situated in the Government cavern. The remaining crews had equally important<br />tasks. As the morning progressed some of the workers traded places with<br />workers on the other crews based on previous experience, knowledge, skills<br />and abilities. I have a lot of experience in installing electrical wiring and would<br />be of more benefit to the job if one of you guys has plumbing experience and<br />wants to change jobs. Sure enough some person would say yeah I have some<br />plumbing experience but I don't know squat about electricity, so they would<br />switch jobs. Some of the crews had surplus men because the job was being<br />done by just three or four people that seemed to know what they were doing so<br />the surplus workers would find a crew that needed more help and go to work<br />there.<br />Carter watched the progress in awe. The field kitchen was planned to be<br />adjacent to the Government kitchen but the men themselves had elected to set<br />it up in The Company cavern and had it all set up in a couple hours. One of the<br />crews had located the new walk in refrigerator which was packaged on five<br />separate pallets, got hold of a forklift and started assembling it with the door<br />opening into the kitchen. After the lunch break they quickly had it all<br />assembled, wired in and running. Thelma entered and watched along with<br />Carter as the crews transformed the Company cavern before their eyes.<br />Tim saw Carter take Thelma back and show her the hot spot. It was<br />located at the back wall, near the right side of the Company cavern as you<br />entered from the Government cavern. The Company cavern was 1.2 miles from<br />front to back, it was a little over half a mile wide at its widest point but tapered to<br />only about a quarter mile wide where the tunnel entered. It was about three<br />eights of a mile wide at the back wall. Of course none of the walls ran in a<br />straight line. The hot spot was just over a mile from the tunnel entrance. The<br />floor space in The Company cavern was equal to about 930 football fields at<br />floor level.<br />Thelma and Carter examined the hot spot then left the cavern, returning<br />a few minutes with a couple of the Government scientific types. They pounded,<br />prodded, drilled out a few core samples from the wall and the floor. They left<br />the cavern, only to return a short while later with some other scientists. They<br />talked some more, made some notes. A short time later woman with a camera<br />came in and took several pictures of the blank wall and the floor. Then they all<br />left. About 1130 Carter returned and told Jack that he had done every one a big<br />favor. It is fewer than one hundred feet down at that spot on the floor to where<br />it is over one thousand degrees Fahrenheit. It would be the ideal spot to mount<br />the geothermal generator. That spot could even be blocked off from the rest of<br />the cavern. There is a good water supply in the creek here so it looks like we<br />have found the spot for our generator, one of them anyhow.<br />The workers broke for lunch 1200 but most of them were back working<br />even before 1300. “I have never seen people this industrious but I guess this is<br />what you get when you only take the cream of the crop.” Carter remarked to<br />Thelma. “I'll have to admit that I had my doubts yesterday when I discovered<br />that about half the construction workers were women but I am proud to say that<br />they seem to be doing just fine.” The crews knocked off for the day at 16:30 to<br />get cleaned up for dinner. A few of them still stuck around to finish what they<br />were working on.<br />That evening The Company cavern was a lot better lit and four hundred<br />new houses had one level of blocks laid. The crews had not made the walls<br />higher because they had run out of blocks. The block makers had more than<br />one thousand new blocks curing on the surface, near the elevator. A few of the<br />workers had already had a chance to try out their Mars suits on the surface.<br />Tim walked by the supply area and was amazed to see the amount of material<br />that had already been unloaded from Mars Supply Two. There was an acre or<br />more of Supplies now available. Eventually the supplies brought in by the ship<br />would cover more than five acres. All of the pallets and crates had been<br />carefully dismantled a and the lumber stacked just like any other supplies.<br />Once all the wood had been stacked the new people would each receive their<br />fair share for their personal use.<br />Tim went to the public bathroom and cleaned up. His crew had been<br />laying cement blocks and required little advise or supervision from him. He had<br />spent the day working as a gopher for the other crews because he knew better<br />than most, how to find things at supply. By the end of the day he had a pretty<br />good idea where to locate tools and materials that the various installers needed.<br />Carter spotted Tim in the chow line, and came up to him. “Tim I see that you<br />have had some well drilling experience. How would you like to be on our drilling<br />team starting tomorrow morning?” Walter and Thelma Potts were right behind<br />Tim in line and they invited Carter to step in front. Nobody minded much when<br />a friend joined someone in line because the line moved pretty fast anyway. “I<br />would love to do some drilling Carter, I have spent a lot more time drilling than<br />in construction and that is what my degree is in.” “Good then tomorrow morning<br />you can pick your team, but you have to take Freddy as your first choice<br />because he has had a little experience drilling on Mars. Freddy is not a leader,<br />he's a follower but a good worker and he knows a lot about Mars.” “How many<br />men would you think that I need?” “I don't know I haven't had any well drilling<br />experience, in fact you seem to be the only construction guy that I could find<br />with any.” “Lets start with about eight then. Ordinarily I would say that we need<br />timbers but since wood is scarce we can settle for a ladder and a superstructure<br />built from pipe, and a platform at the top made of lumber to hang the drill from.<br />By the way, do we have well drilling equipment?” “I don't know you might have<br />to improvise something.” Tim had stumbled across some equipment earlier that<br />day when he was looking for something else. That evening, after dinner he<br />enlisted Archy and a couple people that he knew and they constructed a ladder<br />the superstructure for the rig and a platform.<br /><br /></div>Si Kurochanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10667878613172957606noreply@blogger.com0