somestory

2010-12-29T03:09:00.001-08:00

Sebuah Tips, Layouts For Blogspot, Gadget For Blogspot,

2010-10-16T00:30:00.001-07:00

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2010-04-18T01:17:00.000-07:00

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 25

2009-04-18T23:23:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER - December 31, 2108: Happy new year 2109
January 7, 2109 : Tunneling starts to reach the long low 6th cavern nine
hundred feet away. This was a new experience for the drillers. So far the
caverns had been close enough to being on the same level but this dig was at a
six percent down grade the whole way. It was difficult to keep loose material
from getting in the way. A front end loader was constantly removing the loose
material. After a while they got the knack of it and started making pretty good
progress. At one hundred feet in they they ran into solid quartz. They
summoned Harold Dixon, the mine manager “what do you recommend we do
about this Harold?” “This is a good thing and a bad thing, I would like to take

some samples for assay and I would like for you to tunnel to get a crawl space
to the other side. Also get the scientists to get you some pictures of what this
looks like, I need to know the size and contents of this formation. Is there
another route you could take to still get to Utopia?” “There is a longer way, yes,
Lets get Tim and Carter and see if they have any idea's.” “A few minutes later
Tim showed up with Hal Johnson, and all the charts of known caverns in the
area. If you went to the side of the hourglass away from the winery and
changed direction and dug off to the right of the hour glass you would only have
a short dig 150 feet to a very large cavern that we can tell little about but we
know that it is almost 68 square miles in size and we really didn't want to have
to pressurize a hole that big at this time. Now, however since we have
additional atmosphere apparatus and have that big generator that we were
thinking of using in Utopia we could use it in that big cavern, assuming there is
water and a hot spot somewhere in there. If not we could lay down an air tight
tunnel which would be twelve miles long and then tunnel another two hundred
fifty feet and we come out in this little arm of Utopia.” Jonson mumbled as he
ran his finger over the chart. Harold said “I would like to see you guys go that
route and leave this quartz to us hard rock guys, there is no way to tell, of
course but I smell gold there.” as he pointed to the quartz barrier. “Why don't
you guys knock off for the rest of the day and I will have new marching orders
for you in the morning. Tim and Hal went back to the Government cavern and
connected with Paul and Carter. Johnson explained the plan change to them
and they agreed. “If Harold wants that quartz lets give it to him and take on the
little giant instead. I always kinda wanted to go that way in the first place. It
was just the challenge that cavern poses to our environmental facilities that sent
us on the route we were taking anyway.
January 20, 2109 The tunnelers started their dig again, this time to the
little giant. They ran in to lots of rocks but still managed to make pretty good
headway. The rocks were all being sent back for the scientists to study and
identify. These guys didn't know much about rocks but generally the harder
they are the more valuable they are, and these were very hard rocks, a hammer
wouldn't break one or cleave it.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 24

2009-04-17T23:21:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – Mars Runner makes it's first docking
December 22, 2108: There was a lot of interesting and long awaited
cargo on Mars Runner. The two items that got the most attention however were
150 twelve foot fiber glass fishing boat kits, They came disassembled with the
boats stacked one inside the other. There were several large crates with
hardwood seats, fixtures and oars. There was even 150 two horsepower
electric trolling motors, which also came partially disassembled. Within just a
few days everything was assembled before Tim ever got around to assigning a
crew to do the work. Soon there were boats available everywhere that fishing
was allowed.

The second item of intense interest to the workers on Mars and their talk
radio show was the arrival of the wine and beer making equipment and plants.
There was also enough grapes hops barley and yeast ready to use for them to
start production as soon as they were set up. They chose the hour glass for
their operation. Byron and Austin had leased eighty acres from The Company
they had already learned what they thought they needed to know to make beer
and wine. In the public interest and because there was so much surplus labor
around, Tim approved them having the use of four crews if they agreed to keep
them busy. The brewery and two houses appeared almost overnight. Within
the week the rest of their eighty acres had been planted in barley, hops, grapes
and sugar cane. They even had volunteers showing up after work and on their
days off to see if they could help. With their initial order they had ordered a
supply of the Mars soil converter plus two tons of fertilizers and ten million Earth
worms. The soil in this vineyard and farm would be very rich indeed. They first
tried making their beer and wine in five gallon containers so as not to ruin too
much of it if things didn't turn out as expected. What they got for their trouble
was drinkable beer and wine but it was none too good. One of the construction
workers that had helped them in setting up their facility tasted both products
and said, “I thought you guys new what you were doing, this is slop,” he said as
he took another big drink. “I suppose you could do better, wise ass.” “Oh hell
yes, I was an apprentice with Barble Beer before I got this Job. I'll make you a
deal' let me make a carboy (five gallon water bottle) of beer and if it is not better
than this I will drink it all. Austin said “No matter who made a carboy of beer
you would drink it all” “True.” said Gene, the construction worker but seriously
maybe I could give you some pointers.” With that he went into the brewery, got
out the equipment and proceeded to show them how to brew a small batch of
beer. Ten days later it was ready to drink. “This may be the best beer I have
ever tasted,” Byron, Suds said “How would like a part time job as brew meister?
Maybe I can do better than that. Gene called Tim on his cell, “Tim where are
you?” Gene ask. “Carla and I are at the spa, who is this Gene?” Yeah it's Gene,
look Byron and Austin and I have a deal for you we will be right there.” They all
three jumped into the cart that Gene had come over in and took off or the spa.
They were there in ten minutes. “OK Tim here is the deal, I would like for you to
give me a permanent assignment in the Hour Glass or doing something that
would benefit The Company enough that you could justify it, have you got
anything like that?” “I don't know of anything off hand Gene but I will keep it in
mind, why the request?” “I'll tell you why Tim, I recently tasted some brew that
these two dodo's made and you almost couldn't drink the stuff, it was terrible.”
“Terrible,” Austin repeated. “Then I made them a carboy full of good beer and
Byron said it was the best beer he had ever tasted. I know how to make beer
and they don't. Since this is the only brewery on Mars don't you think it would
be in the beer drinking publics best interest to have good beer?” “I agree but let
me think, I know we don't have a park ranger in the hour glass yet and there are
valuable natural beauty assets there that need to be protected. We already
have rangers on duty in paradise and The Company cavern to protect the fish,
how would you like to be the ranger at the Hour Glass, Gene?” “Fantastic, I
knew I could count on you Tim.” So it was that Hour glass brewery got a brew
meister and the folks on Mars got some really good beer.
Beer containers were a problem Austin and Byron hadn't thought of
before ordering all their other stuff, but Gene had the answer, I will just put a
large covered vat in the square and the customers can bring their own
containers. The kitchens have hundreds of plastic jugs that stuff they use
comes in and they have just been storing the empties in the back of one of the
caverns in hopes they would be of use some day. Well we can retrieve a
couple thousand of those jugs, wash them and give them to people that don't
have containers when they buy beer from our vat. Three weeks later they had
the vat set up and Byron was selling beer every evening from 1700 to 1900.
Gene turned out to be not a very good ranger but he was a heck of a brewer.
Most people swore that Hour Glass brewery on Mars made the best beer they
had ever tasted. Byron and Austin made so much money that they bought out
Genes contract with The Company and made him a partner. In the meantime
Gene, who was actually a pretty sharp guy had been hitting the Internet- and
boning up on wine making. After several hundred hours of study he thought he
was ready. He got out the ingredients and the equipment and proceed to make
a carboy of wine. It was a burgundy and it was pretty good so after Austin and
Byron approved he started making vats of it. He then tried a Chablis which was
also pretty good and Gene figured considering the competition it was good
enough. Within six months they were also selling table wine in the square, no
one seemed to rave about the wine like they did the beer but they bought it
anyway.
Also among the items that were brought in on Mars Runner were an
assortment of salt water fish and enough mixture to convert ten million gallons
of fresh water to salt water. Helen asked,”What do you need that stuff for, we
have plenty of salt in the caverns, there are big deposits of it. Grace told Helen
“There is a lot more than just salt in this mixture, Helen this is the residue that
results from the dehydration of ocean water. There are hundreds of nutrients in
this mixture that salt water fish require. For the next month Grace and Helen
and three crews were busy setting up the Ocean and introducing the salt water
fish.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 23

2009-04-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – The Hour Glass
November 30, 2108: the tunneling crew broke through into their 4th
cavern. This was another large and beautiful cavern similar to Paradise. It was
almost a perfect hour glass in shape and as luck would have it they had broken
through right at the thin part of the hour glass. When the powerful portable
lights were shined in both directions they saw stalagmites, stalactites, and
columns in every direction. It was later established that the hour glass had
about 22 square miles of floor space. There were five lakes averaging ten
acres each in size and all joined by a river that ranged from fifteen feet to 50
feet in width. The water here moved quite slowly. Soundings disclosed that the
lakes were all more than two hundred feet deep and even the river ran over 50
feet deep in places. Best of all the water was warm. There must be magma
somewhere here that is not too far below the surface. They didn't really need
another park but it looked like they had found one. Once details of the Hour
Glass cavern were released they dominated not only the talk radio show but
Rusty spent at least half of his local news half hour discussing the new cavern
and what it could mean for their community.

December 2, 2108: Tunneling starts to reach the fifth cavern, 1100 feet
away.
December 15, 2108: The fissures had all been sealed and pressure
tested and atmosphere introduced. The temperature in the hour glass was 86
degrees. Back in the Government cavern the temperature had been down in
the forties when Tim and Carla first arrived and the caverns had to be heated
for people to be comfortable. With the tunnels open and fans circulating the air
the temperature had equalized at 72 degrees everywhere and nothing had to be
heated.
December 15, 2108: Grace had more water than she new what to do
with. She was trapping fish from the other ponds and introducing them to the
lakes in the Hour Glass. Walkways were laid so as to encircle each of the lakes
and along the rivers. It might be a couple years before the fishing got really
good, and no one was allowed to fish at the Hour Glass lakes for over a year
but the fish that Grace had introduced were thriving. Grace now had a full crew
working for her doing nothing but making fish food, and migrating fish. Talk
radio spent a lot of time talking about fishing.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 22

2009-04-15T23:11:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – Mars Supply Two returns
November 15, 2108: Mars Supply Two docked, Mars was closer to Earth
now and the travel time was a little less. The three hundred passengers that
they carried were mostly construction workers. There was more lumber than
the colony had ever had before. There were four hundred pallets of
merchandise for Super Store and six new employees. The Company who had
been operating the first class restaurant sent sixteen employees and a
manager. There was enough equipment, supplies and frozen food to fully equip
a first class restaurant. There were also five hundred cases of liquor. More was
due to arrive in December when Mars Runner made its first docking at the Mars
orbiter.

November 21,2108: The building for the restaurant had already been
built in the square next to the Bank and waiting when the ship arrived The
building had been plumbed and wired so it took less than a week to install the
equipment. The restaurant opened for business Today. Prices were
established at $200.00 for a first class meal with two drinks Included but two
more optional at $10.00 each. Alcohol was limited to diners. The new
restaurant dominated the talk radio program for several days.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 21

2009-04-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – The Ocean
October 7, 2108: The tunneling crew broke through to the third cavern on
their way to Utopia. As soon as breakthrough occurred the scientists dressed in
Mars suits descended on the place and started their measurements . The
cavern was almost circular and covered about twelve square miles. Almost
the whole cavern floor was covered by one giant lake. A warm spring entered
at one side of the cavern and fed the large lake. There was a stream exiting the
lake and flowing off into the a crevice in the cavern wall. The water temperature
of the lake was a mild 68 degrees. Tim knew instantly that they had found
Graces Ocean. He went to fetch Grace immediately and told her to bring her

Mars suit and follow him. When they approached the air lock Tim put his Mars
suit back on and told Grace to do likewise. While they were putting their suits
on Tim asked Grace,“Do you remember asking me to enlarge the fish ponds
because you were expecting a shipment of Salt Water fish on the Mars Runner
when it docks in December?” “Of course I remember but what does this have to
do with..?” “I'll show you Tim interrupted.” With that they went through the
double doors of the air lock and Tim presented Grace with her with her Ocean.
The natural water temperature here is 68 degrees and I seem to remember that
on Earth they used to quote water temperatures in that range on the radio” “Yes
68 would be perfect.” “Great we should have this cavern sealed and
pressurized within the week. We can install a reverse osmosis system where
that water exits and use the output as household tap water. You can put your
salt solution into the lake and when the reverse osmosis system filters it out you
can put it back into the lake.
Luckily the floor was almost level with the tunnel so the drillers continued
on their way
October 8, 2108: The four fissures in what they were all referring to as
the Ocean cavern were sealed and a pressure test was run. One of the seals
leaked a little but was quickly repaired. The cavern was pressurized by the end
of the week.
October 9, 2108: Tunneling promptly began on the next long tunnel
another nine hundred foot span. The digging went fast and easy. The workers
never had to wear their Mars suits. Men were now working the tunnel around
the clock. They were gaining more than two feet per hour at times.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 20

2009-04-13T01:04:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – Super Store opens for Business
Super Store opened on the first Sunday of June, 2108. There were six
hundred people in line when they opened their doors. They had put their
shelves up and stocked the store with all the select merchandise that they had
been able to transport on the one hundred pallets they had been allowed on the
ship.

They opened the doors at 0900 all of the merchandise, every piece of it,
was in the hands of customers by 0930. People had just grabbed anything they
could get their hands on, it didn't matter whether it was something they could
use or not. With only three registers open it took until 1300 to get everyone
checked out. At that point there was no reason to remain open so they hung a
sign on the door and reconciled themselves to waiting for the next ship which
would be in August. All three Super Store employees went to work for the bank
on a temporary basis until August.
The following Sunday there was another giant swap meet in the business
district which had now become known as the square. Most of the merchandise
that had been purchased at Super Store was available for resale to the people
that actually needed the items for a slightly higher price of usually twice what
Super Store had sold it for. The swap meet also sold out in a few hours and
had to shut down.
Archy had wondered why there were so few people show up for church.
The church was open and operating now in the square with cement block
benches to accommodate one hundred worshipers. Archy put up a sign in front
of the church announcing an evening service to begin at 1900 hours. That
service was packed. Archy had successfully solicited twenty residents to form a
choir and chosen a choir director from among them. That evening the church
was packed and everyone enjoyed the choir and the country and western band
that accompanied them. Archy's leaning in the church was heavily toward lots
of hand clapping and gospel music. Everyone seemed to have a great time.
They particularly enjoyed Archy's preaching that was heavy on the shouting to
the lord and bible slapping and Hell, Fire and Brimstone rhetoric.
The church had to be doubled in size to accommodate the congregation.
Archy only wished that he was not obligated to The Company for the next ten
years so he could devote full time to his work as pastor.
June 20, 2108: Tim and Carter discussed this with Paul who agreed that
Archy was such a positive influence on the community that Carter and Paul
requested that be reassigned by The Company as the pastor of the church as
his full time work. After all they needed a full time pastor to conduct weddings,
baptisms, funerals and the many other duties that a pastor performed in the
community. Paul had already found out that the protestant pastor that The
Company was sending to Mars as Chaplain was an Episcopal priest so there
would be very little conflict between Archy and the new Protestant Chaplain.
Carter took it on himself and contacted the The Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky who when they heard about Archy's ministry
and viewed a video of one of his services on Mars held a special ordination in
absentia ceremony and not only ordained Archy but gave him an honorary
Doctor of Divinity degree. Now Archibald Shrimp would a full time practicing
minister with his own church and congregation. On Mars he was called the
Chaplain.
While this had all been happening the small side of the new cavern had
been sealed and pressurized the large end of the cavern would just have to wait
for more equipment to arrive from Earth. Two wonderful discoveries were made
when the scientists could get into the cavern and examine it closely. There was
adequate geothermal energy in close proximity to provide power to several
large generators, maybe enough to power all of Utopia.
June 30, 2108: The second discovery was a vein of gold larger than any
vein that had ever been discovered on Earth, anywhere.
“The company is going to be very happy to hear about this discovery
Carter.” “Now maybe we will have something to send back to Earth instead of
everything coming this way.” “Better see if we have anyone with hard rock
mining experience and get them extracting that gold ore right away. I would like
to have as much as possible on hand to ship back when the next supply chip
gets here in August.
Tim went to Doris and had her scan the data base of employees and
picked out fifteen candidates who had claimed to have the skills that he was
looking for. He called each of them on his cell and ask them to meet him in the
small cavern that had just been tamed in one hour. Tim was the first one there
and looked around while he waited for the others. Shortly all fifteen had arrived
and he said “I would like to show you gentlemen something and then I would
like you to tell me what you think.” He lead them to the wall and pointed out the
vein. “Wow that is really something.” Tim just stood by and listened to their
ensuing conversation. It didn't take long for Tim to choose his foreman. One of
the men, Harold Dixon seemed to know a lot more than any of the others. The
other men were looking to him for answers. He had a relaxed posture and
attitude, was very knowledgeable and communicated his thoughts easily to the
others. “You men have just been reassigned to the mine crew. Please advise
your present crew chief's of the change. You can get together and decide what
all you will need to get started extracting that gold. Harold would you step over
here there is something I would like to ask you?” “Sure” Tim and Harold walked
about 50 feet away from the other men and Tim said “you seem to know quite a
bit about this mining business Harold just how much experience have you had?”
“I have been a hard rock miner all my life and my father before me spent his life
mining, my grandfather was a prospector. My family is from rural Nevada. The
mines are pretty well played out there so when this job came my wife and I
jumped at it.” “What is your educational background Harold?” “I have a BA in
Engineering from University of Nevada, Reno and a Masters in Mine
Engineering from Colorado School of Mines, in Golden, Colorado.” “I'm
impressed, you will be in charge of setting up this mine and supervising this
crew.
Make sure that the things these guys have put on the list they are
preparing are legitimate and then see if you can find enough of the things you
need in the supply yard to get started. There will be a ship arriving here in
August but it is too late to get anything on that ship. We should be getting two
ships in December and what you need besides what we already have here will
be on that ship.” If you can find enough to get started in the yard your crew can
start in the morning. You will probably be seeing a lot of me around here for a
while because among my other chores I am a drilling engineer and we will be
installing another generator about a mile over there.” Tim pointed toward the hot
spots. “Give me a call this evening and let me know if you want all the men that
are here or if you need more that are unskilled. These men here are the only
ones that claim to have any hard rock mine experience. I should be able to find
you some coal miners though if and when you need more men.”
June 30, 2108: The next morning Tim allowed his assistant to hold the
muster while Tim got his drilling crew together and began to pillage the supply
yard. They found better drilling equipment than they had used on their first hole
in The Company cavern. He then inspected the new generator and found it was
almost twice the output of their present generator. He told the men to gather all
the equipment that they needed and meet him at the hot spot when the
equipment was all in place. These were the men that Tim had worked with on
the previous hole and they all pretty much knew what they were doing. They
didn't need much direct supervision and Tim already knew which of them would
be best qualified to be in charge of the project when he wasn't there. It took
them all day to find and move the equipment so they didn't need to call Tim any
more that day.
Tim then looked up the air quality control supervisor who was one of the
Government scientists. “Where do we stand on getting the new atmosphere
equipment installed at the Utility cavern?” Tim ask. “So far so good, I was
relieved to find that we had everything that we need and it is being moved to the
Utility cavern now.” The small new cavern that had just been opened had been
dubbed, the Utility cavern because of the generator and atmosphere equipment
being installed there. “We should have the new equipment running in a week or
so. Then there will be no question that we will have plenty of atmosphere so we
can open the big half of that cavern.” “Crews were already working on the
surface sealing the fissures on the big half so it looked like they could open it up
within the next week.
July 1, 2108: tunneling was coming along great on the tunnel to the third
new cavern. It would be a 580 footer and the crews were already in ten to
twelve feet and another crew was already installing the air lock. Every evening
the spa in the paradise cavern was packed with people enjoying the hot water.
Some were even swimming in the warm river. The park had turned out to be
very popular with the population of Mars.
Tim could hardly wait to get Big Lake Cavern opened, and the lake
stocked with fish. Tim had no idea how they would manage to build boats or
rafts to use on the lake but he was sure someone would come up with
something. Tim made a note to himself to find out about getting some electric
outboard motors, they could always find some Styrofoam or empty drums or
something that would float.
The tunnel enlarging crews had started work on enlarging the tunnel
from the Paradise cavern to the Utility cavern.
Tim, Carla, Juan and Lupe once again started playing shuffleboard in the
evenings. They had no trouble at all finding an open court.
July 4, 2108: Tim and Carla attended the Saturday night dance and
found a table. They danced a couple times while they sipped a cup of tea.
Then Carla said she would like some air so they stepped out. No one had yet
figured out how to hold fireworks on Mars, and they didn't have any anyway so
it didn't seem much like the 4th of July.
Tim remembered something that he wanted to get from home so he went
around the mess hall to go and retrieve it. He was shocked to see about thirty
people sitting around in folding chairs pulled up to folding tables all smoking
clay pipes. They could hear the music just fine from there and some of them
had laid down their pipes to go and dance. Tim spotted one of the men he new
in the crowd and went over and joined him. The man casually acknowledged
Tim then passed him his lit clay pipe. There was no doubt at all what the pipe
contained. Tim respectfully declined but gave the man a big smile. Nothing
had to be said.
On Sunday, after church Tim called Paul and Carter to request a quick
meeting. He related to them what he had observed behind the dining room on
Saturday evening. “We already know all about it Tim, and we have figured out
how to handle it.” “How is that,” Tim ask. “By doing nothing,” Carter responded.
If I caught a member of management smoking in public I would ask him not to
do that any more, but as long as we don't have a problem during the work
week, I see no harm in it. After all pot is now completely legal in twelve states.
So far it has not occurred to the Government or The Company to address the
issue. We have had a chat with Abner and Darwin over at the farm and they
assure me they are giving the stuff away to anyone who comes by and asks for
it. Sometimes they say that a person will slip them some small amount of
money for their trouble but they never ask for anything in return. Since alcohol
is not available this pot is the only thing people have to help them relax and
have a good time at the Saturday night dance and other such gatherings. If
anyone wants to smoke it in their own home we have no objection to that either.
Paul and I both agree that everyone would be appreciative if we never
brought the issue up. On the other hand if you ever caught anyone smoking on
the job you should probably advise them that what they are doing is not allowed
and if they persist they could ruin a good thing for everybody.” “That is all I
wanted to know, and I have no objection to the non policy,” said Tim. “I will see
to it that Rusty doesn't do a story about it on TV and that everybody gets the
word they should not smoke in public when there is a ship in port. I think those
should be reasonable restraints, after all we don't want word of this non policy
getting back to Earth.” Tim added.
July 10, 2108: The two gentlemen who had volunteered to produce
alcohol had harvested their first crop of corn and finished making their first
batch of booze. They only produced about twenty gallons and had already
consumed quite a bit of that themselves. No one had planted more corn.
Abner had corn growing at the farm but it had not been earmarked for making
booze. It appeared that our booze project had failed. Tim had the two men
take the remaining booze over to the farm where Abner had agreed to store it
until next New years Eve when everyone would get one drink as far as it went.
July 1, 2108: Two of the Government workers who had remained on
Mars as private citizens had been racking their brain to figure out what kind of
business they wanted to go into. They finally hit on the idea of starting a winery
and brewery. Ironically their names were Austin Viner and Byron Suds. They
had ordered the plants and grow lights and other equipment that they needed to
produce grapes, hops, barley and yeast and were working at Burger Boy's until
their stuff came in in December. It had cost them almost a million dollars but
they were sure they had made a good investment.
July 6, 2108: Tim went to see Abner that morning to tell him that there
was now plenty of room for his orchards. Tim had staked off 40 acres of land in
Big Lake cavern. Tim asked Abner to accompany him to Big Lake. The two of
them walked the area reserved for the Orchards. “Great said Abner now all I
will need is topsoil and grow lights to cover 40 acres of land.” Abner had been
mixing local nitrates with manure from the farm and Martian soil for some time.
He had quite a pile of it. “You see this Tim,” Abner said when they returned to
the farm. If I mix this soil with the contents of my compost pile, then plant each
tree in a 3X3X3 hole filled with this mixture I should have a good start at
growing our orchard. I can dig the holes now and fill as many of them as
possible with this soil I will start another soil conversion pile at the Orchard.
Once you get the grow lights in I will be able to start transplanting these little
trees.
August 12, 2108: Mars Supply One docked. They had brought only one
hundred new construction workers but they had brought two hundred new civil
service employees. Mars now had the staff for the public services that they
needed. They got 150 new clerical people, one judge, two attorneys, a Public
Records Librarian, and even three police officers. One of the clericals was an
election specialist and would work in that capacity full time as needed if and
when there were to be an election. In the meantime she was assigned to
computer input work. One of the new clerical workers was assigned as Tim's
secretary. Tim had been taking up too much of Doris time lately with his
projects that had nothing to do with her data base work. Tim had accumulated
a ton of work for that he had been putting off.
Among the cargo items that arrived were1,000 new grow lights. Tim
already knew they would be on this flight because he had told The Company
that the trees they had sent would be of no value without them so they had
agreed to put them on the next ship out.
The ship had also brought ten thousand board foot of utility grade ply
wood in various thicknesses. There were the usual food supplies and among
other things, lots of odds and ends they desperately needed.
Aside from personnel they got the 125 golf carts they had requested.
They came all dismantled and crated but assembling them would not be a
problem. Everyone was thrilled that they got two hundred thousand fingerling
catfish, cutthroat, bluegill, and crappy. Before the ship arrived screens had
been installed on the two warm rivers to keep the young fish from swimming off
into uncharted regions of Mars. There was a lady ichthyologist that said she
had been sent along to care for the fish. She had enough fish food to keep
them growing for three months and knew how to process table scraps into fish
food. There was the parts necessary to construct a new large geothermal
generator, another unit would arrive in December when Mars Runner made it's
first arrival. One great thing that came in was five thousand cubic feet of
hardwood. It was in various sizes but wood was something they had plenty of
uses for. There was cargo for the farm as well, Abner had ordered and now had
received twenty million Earth worms. Super Store even received another
hundred pallets of merchandise. Tim laughed, now they will be able to open for
business for another one day stand.
Tim was wrong, this time around it took Super Store into the second day
to sell everything that they had.
Ever since Tim had arrived the new arrival's had all had housing waiting
for them. The previous crop of new arrivals and this group had rooms in row
houses, They had started using common walls between the units instead of
building individual houses as they had done at first. They would build another
row of rooms that shared a common wall at the rear of the room. The
completed units resembled motels. The buildings were then given a number
followed by a dash and then a letter, as in 354-C. There were 20 units to each
building so they would letters up to T.
Because of the irregular work hours the kitchens and dining rooms had
started staying open 16 hours per day. They would just transition from
breakfast to lunch to dinner and people could eat any time they pleased. The
kitchens had started offering more choices of food and serving buffet style
rather than just serving everyone that came through the line the same meal.
The Government kitchen always offered a different food selection than The
Company kitchen. Residents were free to eat in either dining room. For the
most part the vegetables were fresh from the garden and both dining halls
usually offered a salad bar, and a choice of dressings. More cooks and kitchen
help were arriving on each ship so they had plenty of help in the kitchens. In
addition to these changes it took standing in line for 20 minutes or more to get a
Big Boy and fries.
Paul mostly but Tim and Carter to a degree had dreaded the day that
they would have police officers on duty in the community. Now they had a U.S.
Marshal and two deputies. Paul summoned them to visit his office. In about ten
minutes three young women entered the office. “Are you the police officers?“
Carter asked. “Yeah, not what you expected, huh?” “No, not exactly,” Tim
answered. “Just what do you ladies expect to contribute to this community?”
Paul inquired. The older of the three spoke for the three of them. “ Why don't
we introduce ourselves, I am Deputy United States Marshal Constance Raul,
my two associates here are Marlene Dotson and Pamela Justin, they are also
Deputy United States Marshals but I am in charge because my pay grade is
higher than theirs and I have been with the Marshal Service longer. You
gentlemen are?” I am Paul Silverman, the facility director and this is Carter
Fredrick, the Mars Colony, Inc. manager and Tim Erkin, the construction
superintendent. The titles may be a little misleading but the three of us pretty
much run the facility. “Now as I previously asked, Just what do you ladies
expect to contribute to this community?”
“We will have a lot to do,” Constance replied. “One thing will to be to find
out why you have never had a reportable crime in the twelve years since the
colony was established. Another thing is to be the administrative arm of the
court system once that is established. Another would be to investigate any
crime that does occur, and believe me, it is inevitable that sooner or later as
your population grows you will have some crime. You gentlemen could
probably apprehended a suspect but there are occasions when you wouldn't
know who to apprehend. I know we are young women but between us we have
had over 27 years of training beyond high school, in college and in practicing
our professions. Any of us would be qualified to work in a crime lab or work as
a crime scene investigator on Earth. If, as you apparently believe, it turns out
that we have nothing to do then we could always ask you for permission to take
jobs on the young economy that we hear is emerging on Mars. That way we
would always still be available if you needed us to do the job we were sent here
to do.” All three of the men in the room were impressed. “I guess you don't
need any advise from us so just go about your business. Carter put in, “We
have constructed a court house of sorts, but like you said we have never had a
crime, we have never had a civil action filed either. You will find your offices in
the court house along side the one cell jail that we constructed. There is also a
bailiffs office, judges chambers and a court room with a jury box and everything.
One of our people will be in touch with you to find out if you need anything. The
girls left and Tim looked at Carter and Paul and just shrugged.
As it turned out, not only were the three U.S. Marshals all female but so
was the judge and the two attorney's. One of the attorney's was the prosecutor
and one the public defender. The bailiff, however turned out to be a large black
man that appeared capable of putting down any courtroom difficulties.
“This is great, “said Paul. “ we now have a whole legal system in place
but we have no laws to enforce or to charge anyone of violating.“ They then
summoned the judge, Nancy Whalen to the office along with the two attorney's.
Paul posed that same question to them. “Oh, but there are laws a plenty. This
colony is officially a territory of the United States, and laws have been
accumulating on the books that govern U.S. Territories for the last four hundred
years, I have over thirty seven books that I brought from the states that are just
crammed full of those laws. These two attorney's here each have a copy of all
the same books that I have. With email we have access to a lot of other laws
that are available from the national law library and from the library of congress.
“Your local assembly, whatever you call it needs to pass what would be
called county ordinances on earth. How do you get by without them?” “Simple,”
said Carter when there is a good reason that people should not do something
we just tell them not to do it and they don't do it. It works the same as when you
have something you want them to do we just tell them to do it but we always
give them a reason. If we don't have a good reason we don't bug them, it works
for us.”
August 13, 2108: Because of having received advance instructions four
large ponds had been dug, cemented and cured. The ponds were adjacent to
the warm river across from the farm in The Company cavern. They were ready
to receive the paint that Grace, the new fish farmer had brought from Earth.
The day after they got the paint the crew that had been assigned to help Grace,
set up painted the four ponds. The paint was quick drying and sat up in an
hour. The workers scrubbed the new paint then painted over that with a
nutritional gel resembling bottom and sides of an established pond. By noon
they opened the four trap doors allowing river water to pour into the ponds.
Fifty thousand young fish were dumped from the tanks they had lived in on the
ship into the ponds. Each breed had their own separate pond. Several
hundred fish in each pond floated to the surface. They had died en route to
Mars. The dead fish were quickly removed. Some of the young fish began to
swim a little but others just laid there, their gills moving as if they were gasping
for air. Grace, the fish farmer put a little food into each tank. The catfish food
sank to the bottom while the blue gill, trout and crappie food floated on the
surface. Thank you folks so much for all your help but there is nothing more
you can do at the moment. You may return to your other duties. One young
woman stayed behind when the others left. If it is all the same to Mam I would
like to relieve you while you go and take care of your housing needs and put
your things away. After that you can go and have lunch and come back when
you are all squared away. Just tell me what to do while you are away and I will
see to it. “ What is your name hon,” Grace asked. “I am Helen, Mam.” “I just
think I may take you up on that offer Helen.” Grace said, “At this point there is
really nothing to do, just keep an eye on the fish and scoop away any that die
and float to the top. I will be back in a couple hours.”
Because the bureaucracy was in such a turmoil because of all the new
arrivals it took Grace closer to four hours before she found her house, found her
luggage and had lunch. When she returned Helen was still there, the net in her
hand and she was carefully scooping away the young fish that had expired.
The worms that Abner had received at the farm were introduced into the
crops and the orchards and to his compost piles. A million or so Earth worms
were given to Grace because she could use them in her own compost operation
that was part of her making fish food out of garbage.
As the days passed Grace had little difficulty in caring for her fish and still
had time to go to her meals and take care of her personal matters and check on
the fish as often as they needed checking on. Every afternoon Helen would
drop by after work and just look at the fish. Sometimes Grace would return to
check on the fish and Helen would be there. Sometimes Helen would drop by
while Grace was working with the fish. Would you tell me about these catfish,
Grace?” Helen ask one evening. “Sure Helen, these fish grow fast, they were
barely hatched when the ship had left Earth but already some of these guys are
six Inches long. A catfish in ideal warm water conditions can grow to over two
pounds in one year. For the cost of production catfish easily out perform all
other fish. Crappie (pronounced Croppy) are prolific and grow to about two
pounds in 18 months or so. They are good eating with lots of meat but you
have a lot of bones to contend with. A lot of pet food manufacturers use crappy
in their products but they grind them up so the bones won't harm the pets.
Trout and blue gill are fun fish, they are fun to catch and they are fun to watch,
but catfish that is where the meat is. Of course blue gill are a favorite of people
who like to fillet small fish and fry them crispy in a pan. Trout really isn't one fish
but a family of fish, we have several varieties in this pond and they are also
good pan fish and the larger varieties are good baked. There is a lot more but if
you are curious why don't you look them up on the Internet and learn all about
them. The fish that we chose to try first on Mars were chosen because they are
hearty fish that we thought might make the journey to Mars and still be alive and
they are fish that we thought might be most likely to adapt best to the
environment here. If I can find the right location I am going to try and create a
salt water lake and have them send up some salt water fish to try here.” “Within
eight or nine months we should be eating fish regularly and fishing should be a
popular sport on Mars within a year.” “I am just taken with these fish Grace I
would love to work with them if the time ever comes that you need an assistant
please consider me for the job. My boyfriend, Darwin got a job on the farm over
there caring for the animals. Darwin and I are planning on getting married soon
and it would be great if he cared for animals and I cared for fish.”
August 22, 2108: Grace had inspected Big Lake and had inspected the
warm river that flowed out of the spa in Paradise and would soon be moving a
couple thousand trout to Big Lake and a Thousand or so catfish to the warm
river. She told Tim the next time she saw him that she would need a crew for a
few hours at sometime in the next week. In the meantime she filled a couple
tanks with water from the two places and put a couple fish in each tank. The
Trout did well in the water from Big Lake and the catfish did just fine in the water
from Warm River. The next week she moved one thousand trout to Big Lake
and one thousand Catfish to Warm River. They both thrived on a minimum
amount of food made from kitchen garbage. The catfish in warm river were
soon larger than the catfish in the pond. The trout in the lake out performed the
fish in the pond also. On the second week in the pond Grace was finding no
more dead fish a day than she would have expected to find on Earth. Grace
opened each trap door long enough to let a few fish out into the river from each
species. Then she started feeding them the food that she made from table
scraps, they also thrived. Grace had also sewn thousands of Earth worms
along the banks of the lakes and rivers and made sure there was enough for
them to eat. Within a month Grace had transplanted more fish to Big lake,
crappie, blue gill and some more trout. Then she opened the gate to the ponds
and left them open. Some of the fish still preferred the pond but most chose the
river and the warm lake. The catfish seemed very fond of the warm lake. The
water in Big Lake stayed a little warmer than most native Mars water because
of all the heat being generated in the Utility cavern.
September 13, 2108: For two weeks Tim had three crews assembling,
charging and testing golf carts. Tim himself got the first one off the assembly
line. He could now scurry from place to place quickly. When the carts were all
assembled they were put in a motor pool. Anyone who needed a cart for work
just took one. When they were done with it they drove it back and parked it in
the motor pool. If the yellow light was on they took it to the charging station and
plugged it in. The lithium ion gel batteries that they used were good for about
two hundred fifty miles or ten days which ever came first, before the yellow light
would come on. There were never more than ten of the carts on the charger
overnight. The surface carts could be used in the caverns but the cavern carts
could not be used on the surface. The difference being that the surface carts
had big balloon tires that would not sink into the dust that was on much of the
surface. People working on the surface would just ride a cart over to the
pedestrian elevator, go up to the surface and use the cart while they were
working then return it in the evening. After five PM people would take a cart
anytime they were going out of the original complex of the Government cavern
and The Company cavern a lot of them could be found at the spa on any given
evening. People could be found lining the banks of Big Lake, near the feeding
area and lining the banks of Warm River and the river and Lake in The
Company cavern every evening spotting fish.
September 20, 2108: The gold mine had proved to be very productive.
They were extracting not only pure gold from the vein but the ore on each side
of the vein for several feet proved to be very rich in gold. They did not even
attempt to smelt the ore on Mars. They did jury rig a crusher that worked well
so they were just crushing everything produced in the mine. They made
cement boxes that were filled with the gold and ore then sealed with cement,
and cured before being loaded on the empty ships and sent back to Earth. The
only way to get at the contents was to destroy the cement box. The boxes were
not so heavy that two strong men on Mars could handle one box which weighed
about one hundred lbs on Mars but weighed almost three hundred lbs on the
ships and on Earth. These boxes had to be unloaded back on Earth with fork
lifts. As far as anyone ever knew no gold had ever been pilfered.
September 23, 2108: The tunnel crew had a hard time digging the tunnel
leading out of Big Lake and the Utility cavern. They ran into hard rock so went
and consulted the mine foreman. He examined the rock and decided it was all
part of the same vein they were pursuing from the Utility cavern. He moved the
mine crew to the tunnel and they removed the 40 foot wide vein of gold bearing
quartz before the tunnel digging crew could continue. The hard rock had finally
been removed and the tunnel crew resumed work on September 27, 2108.
New tunneling equipment had arrived on August 12, 2108 and once
tunneling had resumed it went much faster.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 19

2009-04-12T01:03:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – Big Lake and the Utility Cavern
June 6, 2108 : The Tunnel Crew finally broke through to the second new
cavern. It was huge. It was not as spectacular as Paradise but it was larger
than all their previous caverns combined. Almost thirty square miles. It was
two caverns actually. left as they broke through then a narrow opening,
The tunneling crew had only to don their Mars suits for the last four
hours before breakthrough. The cavern had one nice feature, the floor was
almost flat. They could tell from the light filtering in that it as well was a
beautiful cavern The walls almost had a glow to them, they kind of glistened
when a light was shined on them. A stream, almost a river entered at one side
then pooled into a lake that was quite large near the center of the larger part of
the cavern, probably about five square miles before turning once again into a
stream and flowing out the other side of the cavern. This cavern was slightly
higher in elevation at floor level than Paradise had been.
Tim and Carter were both on hand for the breakthrough, accompanied by
a lighting crew who installed temporary lights in both the large and the small
part of the cavern.

The large part had a very high ceiling and very few fissures to the
surface so they knew they were under a mountain. Had the ceiling been this
high on flat land it would only have been a pit. The scientists speculated that
this large cavern had been formed by a large meteor striking the surface maybe
a billion years in the past. Their guess was that the meteor had also formed the
lake that was very deep and filled with crystal blue water. Most of the scientists
from the Government cavern were pouring into the cavern taking soil samples
and water samples for testing. It was obvious that this cavern had been formed
differently than the others they had come across. Tim and Carter agreed that
this would be the most comfortable cavern they had found and this is where
they should probably be working out of once they had tamed it.
Tim and Carter briefly discussed running an enclosed tunnel through this
monster cavern but withheld making any decision until they knew more.
They didn't notice, since they were wearing Mars suits but the
temperature had risen to 75 degrees in the small side and 72 in the large side.
The scientists discovered that right away though. “My guess is that you are
going to find beautiful hot spots in the small side.” “Yeah, we have enough
equipment to tame this cavern. There is water, maybe we should tame it, we
will know more in a couple days after we have had a chance explore the small
side. We have been so enthralled with the big side that we have paid little
attention to the small side.”
Carter and Paul sent a joint report to Earth telling them what they had
found. They were developing quite a list of things they needed to develop these
new caverns. It would take several days just to explore the new caverns.
The list grew longer and now Included a request for more bureaucrats.
The shortage of clerical help is becoming critical. We need more clerks
everywhere on the facility and once we get our legal system in place we will
need Judges, and all the other people that are needed to run the court system.
We will need at least one prosecuting attorney and one public defender and a
lot more more clerks. In the public records department we have only one part
time clerk now, we need a full time staff. We need at least three police officers,
we need a dispatcher, We need everything that we would have to have to hold
an election. Maybe on the next ship we could skip the construction workers and
send the people we need to convert this work camp into a small city.
They did find several hot spots in the newly opened small side of the new
cavern. There was a warm stream running across the cavern. It was obvious
that this would be the place to house their utilities so Tim put crews to work
installing the new generator, and the atmosphere making equipment. The
Government atmosphere control people had activated one of the backup
atmosphere control units when they opened Paradise. They would now need to
activate the remaining two. There were six more units scheduled for delivery in
September. Tim requested that the two remaining back up atmosphere
systems be installed in the Utility cavern so they could go ahead and pressurize
the Big Lake cavern.
June 15, 2108: Big Lake cavern was pressurized.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 18

2009-04-11T01:01:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – Other Nations want in
June 1, 2008
Meanwhile back on Earth things were happening that could effect the
Mars Project. “Mr. President, the Chinese Ambassador.” “Welcome, Mr.
Ambassador, let's have a seat on the couch over here and you can tell me to
what I owe the honor of your visit. Could I offer you something to drink?” “Oh,
cut the crap, Chet, you know why I am here, We want in on the Mars program.
We want our own colony with our own people running it.” “So, Ambassador Jing,
why are you telling me this?” We make no claim on the planet Mars, only to the
parts of Mars that we have opened up, and developed.

You are free to develop your own program any way you want so long as
you don't violate any of our territorial claims. As you know we claim any cavern
that we have pressurized and populated and any cavern, any part of which is
within two hundred Earth miles of any cavern we have pressurized and
populated.” “We are aware of that Chet but what we are seeking is your help in
developing our program. We want you to help us in all fields of development to
establish a Chinese presence on the planet that does not violate any of your
territorial claims.” “We would be happy to oblige you Jing but we have one
stipulation that you must agree to in order to gain our full support.” “What is that
Chet?” “That we have the right to approve any people that you want to send to
Mars either on our space craft now or your own space craft any time in the
future. You know very well that anyone you send must be of good character
and be able to pass a fluency test in the English Language and that you
acknowledge that the English language is the official language of Mars and that
all communications on Mars, to Mars or from Mars be in English. You know
how many difficulties that this planet has had because of language differences,
we just want to prevent that happening on Mars. If you agree to that then we
will share all that we know about Mars with you, We will train your people for a
price, we will transport your people, for a price and will assist you in any other
way that we can in establishing your colony on the planet. We will also allow
your people to visit our facilities at any time.” “That is where the rub comes in
Chet, we are Chinese and proud of it. Sure I am fluent in English but I doubt
that I could pass your fluency examination. The kinds of people that have the
skills for this kind of endeavor certainly could not pass. Also I am not so sure
that my Government would go along with English being the official language of
Mars.” Then Mr. Ambassador I suggest that you start from scratch and develop
your own program on your own terms. I am sorry Jing but I saw you without an
appointment because I was given to understand that you had only a couple of
quick questions and now I need to see my regularly scheduled guest, the
ambassador from Japan.”
President Harford did the same song and dance that he had just done
with the Chinese Ambassador. The Japanese Ambassador also left in a huff.
The President then buzzed his secretary. Get the press secretary in here right
away. “ Flint I have a job for you.. Get a recording of my last to conversations
from my secretary, listen to them then make up a position paper expressing
those tenants and see to it that all of the nations on Earth that might be in a
position to make a similar request get a copy. Also make sure that the Speaker
and the Sennett Majority leader each get a copy along with a note that I would
like to be able to sign this position into legislation. You can have the legislation
drafted for them it will make the job easier. I am sure that we have the backing
of both sides of the Isle on this one so it will be good for relations. Tell them
they can attach it to the next bill they pass unless think it is a bill that I might
want to veto.”
Two weeks passed and so did the bill. Then the President received a
visit from four different ambassadors at one time. They represented
respectively The UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
“Mr. President I am expressing the sentiments of all four of us and our
countries when I say that we very much approve of your position that English
only should be spoken on Mars and that any candidate that is sent should be
subject to your approval.” “Our four nations have met on this matter and we
would like to join the Mars program. Here is what we would like to offer. We
are willing to reimburse the United States for 40% of everything that you have
already spent on the Mars program over the last twelve years. We would like
to continue to reimburse the United States 40% of everything that you spend in
future years, but we would like to provide candidates for your approval of all
future colonists that are sent to Mars by either the United States Government or
sent by Mars Colony, Inc. until the population of Mars is 40% from our four
countries then we would like for 40% of all future colonists to be chosen by you
from candidates that we provide to you. When you breakthrough into Utopia we
would like for 40,000 of the first 100,000 people to reside in Utopia to be
selected from candidates that we provide to you. Beyond that we would all
caverns developed in future years be allocated as follows, any cavern with a
floor space of more than one hundred square miles be jointly populated. And
that all smaller caverns be allocated so that Australia gets ten % of them, New
Zealand gets ten percent, Canada gets ten percent and that the UK gets ten
percent as our own domains. The United States gets sixty percent.”
“That is very interesting but you are aware that I personally do not have
the authority to accept or decline your offer. What I suggest is that you
gentlemen sit down with our representatives who will be chosen from the
administration as well as from the House and the Senate and hammer out a
deal that we can all live with. There is one thing that I can tell you right now and
it is unofficial. There are certain guidelines that we use to select our
candidates, these rules fly in the face of some of our own civil rights legislation
but we have been getting away with it so far.
1.We do not take race into account.
2. We select equal numbers of men and women.
3. And here it gets a little sticky, we do not accept any candidate with
homosexual tendencies, we feel it would not be accepted by our people who
presently reside on Mars.
4.This one is really sticky we have not as yet selected a candidate
outside of the following, Christians of any denomination, Jews, Agnostics and
Atheists. We just don't want any religious conflicts. So far we have not
selected any professed Atheists, but we do have a few Agnostics. None of the
people that we have selected have any real strong religious feelings at all.
Next, we have been requested by the colony to provide them with Catholic and
Protestant Chaplains and at least one Rabbi. These people and their
necessary equipment have already been selected and will depart on the next
flight. Beyond that we would accept any chaplain candidates that you care to
nominate but those would be sent at your expense.
5.Frankly I don't think congress is going to go for your deal about
separate domains. Here is what I think you will end up with. After you
reimburse the United States for 40% of what we have spent so far you will be
allowed to send 50% of all future candidates until you reach parity then you will
be allowed 40%. You must also be aware that we have a small private sector
emerging on Mars. These people travel as paid passengers on our ships. We
presently charge five hundred thousand dollars dollars for the trip from Earth to
Mars and one hundred thousand dollars for a return flight or $550,000.00 for a
round trip ticket. We have just launched a new space ship we christened Mars
Runner. It is as large as our two other ships combined. Mars Runner belongs
entirely to the United States. We have sold our interest in the other two ships
Mars Supply One and Mars Supply Two to Mars Colony, Inc. but the United
States has retained control of who The Company hauls up to Mars and what
cargo they carry. You will have to negotiate for what cargo rights, business
rights, property ownership rights you will be entitled to on Mars. All real estate
other than what we call the Government cavern is owned by the company.
They will be free to develop it any way they please. They have agreed that the
United States share in the proceeds of any sales or leases of real estate. Only
residents of Mars are eligible to own real estate on Mars but corporations in
good standing are allowed to lease real estate.
6.So far we have no laws on Mars but the community is working on a
criminal and civil code at this time. Mars presently has the status of a U.S.
Protectorate. Common laws that apply to all Protectorates apply to Mars.
7.We have no civil or criminal courts on Mars but they are working on
that. We have not surveyed any real estate on Mars.
8.We have never had a crime committed on Mars and it is a good thing
because we have no police on Mars.
9.So far we have a private ownership bank chartered by two citizens of
Mars who were United States Civil Service Employees who finished their
employment contracts with the government. They have been in operation for
several months and are affiliated with City Bank in the United States. We would
not want to see any other banks on Mars until the population exceeds 30,000.
10.Burger Boy's has opened a restaurant outlet on Mars and Super Store
should be open within a matter of Days with a temporary store pending the
development of Utopia where they have a franchise to open one store for every
40,000 population. All other business fields are wide open.
These things also you need to take into consideration when you are
negotiating with our people. Don't be fooled by congress, Mars Colony, Inc.
has the hammer and they are the ones that will ultimately call the shots.
You would probably save yourselves a lot of red tape if you negotiated
directly with Mars Colony, Inc. and eliminated the middleman. Congress will
probably legislate in favor of any deal you strike on future development, land
use, business, etc. Congress will be more interested in some of the social
issues we discussed.”
“Mr. President, do you think we could”. “Hold it right there, this is not a
negotiation, I just gave you some pointers, save your negotiating for the big
shots. Sorry but I have another appointment waiting. I wish you all the best of
luck.”
They negotiated for almost a year and ended up with a deal that closely
resembled the deal that the President had outlined when they talked to him in
his office.
They also acknowledged that there was a distinct possibility that if the
Mars colony applied for statehood at some future date, when they were ready
the application would probably be favorably received and that if that happened
all the residents of Mars would either be admitted as Citizens of the United
States or would be granted Green Card, resident worker status.
They didn't care much for that clause and it had never occurred to them
that what the United States had planned for Mars was the eventual doubling of
the size of the Continental United States and adding as many as three hundred
million new citizens. Needless to say the UK consortium eventually lost interest
in the deal.
“Why give those blokes our best and brightest, the Prime Minister Said.”
Mars Colony, Inc. did start placing recruitment ads on the internet
soliciting applicants from those four countries.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 17

2009-04-10T00:59:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – Mars Supply Two Docks
May 22, 2108: The next ship arrived, Thelma and Walter announced
their retirement on Rusty's nightly news show and announced that Carter
Fredrick would be taking Thelma's place and that Paul Silverman would be
replacing Walter Potts, as Facility Director .
That didn't set well with Tim, “I am the new Superintendent of
Construction and Paul is the new Facility Director and we are in cahoots on a
slightly shady business deal. We will never speak to Paul of this deal again.
We will just take our money out of the Swiss account in periodic small amounts
and forget I ever found those damned rocks, Carla.”

Tim, Carla Paul and Carter greeted the arrivals to Mars and gave them
the tour. On the tour Tim pointed out the entrance to Paradise. He told them
that this tunnel leads about eight hundred feet to the most beautiful cavern on
Mars. The cavern is so beautiful that we have decided to set it aside for
recreational purposes. Had you rather explore Paradise on your own after I
show you around or do you want to tour it now?” There was some mumbling
among the new arrivals but the consensus seems to have been that they would
prefer to explore Paradise on their own. They were more interested, at the
moment in seeing where they would be working, eating and sleeping.
There was only one real surprise passenger that arrived on the ship.
Rusty introduced him as, “Charles Rasmussen, do you prefer Charles or
Chuck?” Rusty asked. “I prefer Charley,” Rusty went on to tell the viewers that
Charley worked for Super Stores. He was sent as a site locater for a new
Super Store. “ I am here to pick out a site for a temporary store and to have an
early choice for a prime location in Cavern City when that becomes available.
We need the temporary location just to have a place to store all the
merchandise that is aboard this ship and that will be aboard all future ships.”
Once the store is open I will stay on as the manager. The only other Super
Store employees that came with me on this ship are two retail managers.
Additional Company employees will arrive on future flights. I would also like to
tell your viewers that Super Stores is hiring. I know there are not many people
on Mars looking for work but anyone who is nearing completion of their
commitment and wants to stay on the planet could do a lot worse than to figure
Super Stores into their future plans.”
“Within six to eight weeks we expect to have the temporary store open
for business. Before you even ask the answer is yes, Super Store is one of the
principals in Mars Colony, Inc. and before you ask the answer is No we do not
expect to make a profit from this store for many years, if ever. Just like Burger
Boy's we are here for the publicity and the good news for you folks our prices
will not exceed the highest price that we sell a given item for on Earth, plus, of
course an additional freight surcharge.”
“We are aware of the situation on Mars, that you have very few people,
you are making lots of money and you have no place to spend it. We are also
aware that your household's are lacking almost everything we sell.”
Rusty interviewed his guest and the two employees of Super Store for a
couple minutes then announced
“We have some more news that we just learned today. The U.S.
Government has just christened the new space ship Mars Runner. It is as large
as Mars Supply One and Mars Supply Two combined. It will cut travel time
between Earth and Mars by as much as 65%. It will start arriving here from
three to five times a year, with the first arrival scheduled for Late December of
this year. The two existing Mars Supply Ships have been sold to Mars Colony
Inc. and will be strictly commercial vessels from now on. We have just been
supplied with two new Shuttle aircraft bringing our fleet to five planes. We will
need that size fleet to unload Mars Runner when it gets here in December. The
next arrival of a Mars Supply ship will get in here around the middle of
September. So if you need to order anything from Earth do it now if you want it
in September, you still have a few days to get a rush order in.”
The Mars supply ships followed a policy of loading all priority items first
then loading the rest of the available space on the ship with wood. On Mars
there was always a critical shortage of wood of all kinds.
May 23, 2108: Tim visited the farm. The first crops had just been
harvested. The grow lights were all hung so that they could be raised or
lowered as needed for various crops. The four farmers were busy but Abner
took a few minutes to talk to Tim. There is one more thing I need Tim, Abner
said, “There is this a construction worker who we have been reluctant to
release because he has been of so much help to us, he still is, he cares for the
animals and takes that burden off of us so we can manage the crops. This is
the man, Darwin Stead, what are the chances of having Darwin pertinently
assigned to the farm?” Tim approved the reassignment on the spot. Then
Abner continued, “We will also need a couple more bedrooms and another
bathroom added to the house do Darwin can marry his finance, Helen, and
remain near the animals in his care.” “Sure,” Tim added, you can use the
people now assigned or Just show up at muster in the morning and I will assign
a crew for the room additions.”
As soon as Tim left Darwin and Abner went back into the Lab and lit up a
smoke, “See what did I tell you Darwin, it was a piece of cake. I knew you were
good people the minute you handed me that little box of seeds.”
May 24, 2108: Tim mentioned to Hal before the morning muster “We will
need to install the new generator in a hot area that has running water nearby. I
don't know of any other spots like that in The Company cavern or the
Government cavern. We have checked Paradise cavern for hot spots. There
are some that might work but their location would detract from the beauty of the
cavern and the recreation center. Worse case scenario we could locate the
new generator right beside the old one but then we would have the problem of
running the lines too far to get electricity where we need it.” Carter made his
decision, “ We are only using about thirty percent of the power we are now
generating. I want to take a look at the next cavern before doing anything. We
still have the original diesel generator on standby.”
Tim then told Hal, “The new ship arrival has brought atmosphere alarms
and emergency closures that would drop down when mounted in a tunnel if the
pressure at one end became lower than at the other end. People could still get
through these emergency closures but once the last person was safely through
the seal could be made permanent. A little atmosphere would still be lost but
the closures would give them time to install air locks while the air was still
breathable.” Hal promised that the new safety items would be installed within
the week.
The sensor on the atmosphere making apparatus constantly read the
atmosphere from various spots and adjusted the output accordingly. The
atmosphere in the caverns was not exactly like that of Earth because it was
basically just nitrogen and oxygen which meant that it could be made from
water and mineral nitrates. In the caverns it seemed to improve the
atmosphere to keep it a little higher in oxygen than on Earth. Earth's
atmosphere contains a little CO2 and so does the atmosphere in the caverns
because without any CO2 plants would not grow and photosynthesis would not
work and without nitrates plants could not grow. Growing plants require nitrates
in the soil to enable them to feed nitrogen into the atmosphere.
May 25, 2108: Tim held the afternoon muster. As promised the
Company had sent three hundred more workers on the Mars Supply Two. This
brought the total company workforce to over 900. The new men didn't show up
because Hal had given a week to get settled in. There were only about 50
workers that did show up but Tim just didn't have enough jobs lined up to keep
them all busy. There were no work orders on the board, Tim had checked. All
the other crews were already working on jobs they had been assigned.
There was another thousand fruit tree seedlings that needed to be
planted so lacking anything better to say Tim told half of the men to take the
seedlings over to the new orchard in the Paradise cavern which would
henceforth be referred to as the orchard. “See if Sue or Dan can put you to
work. “If Sue and Dan don't have any work for you check with Abner at the
farm, if he doesn't need you then you can check in with supply and see if they
have anything to keep you busy. The remaining twenty five men he sent to the
supply yard to help the supply yard crew. What we need, Tim thought to
himself is an administrative assistant to keep track of all these workers and all
the projects and jobs that need to be done.
Abner called Tim and told him that he could use twenty five or thirty
people the next day at the orchard to plant the new trees but they were not
ready to do anything with them yet. Abner said that the people had brought the
trees over to the orchard. We are rigging some temporary grow lights at the
orchard and preparing top soil, we have plenty of help for that. “Send the
planters tomorrow morning, Tim.”
May 29, 2108: All three hundred of the new workers showed up for the
morning muster along with 150 of the regular crews that had finished the
projects they had been working on. Once the workers had assembled Tim
asked if any of them had tree planting experience. Twenty people held up their
hands, will you people report to the orchard, they have some trees that need to
be planted. If anyone here knows of any jobs that need tending to you can go
and get to work now. In a day or two we will have some kind of a table of
organization working, it won't always be this disorganized. For today the rest of
you can go to the supply yard and help get that organized. If any of you see
anything constructive that needs to be done then feel free to do it today. You
new arrivals can plan on March 30, being your first regular workday. Hal just
stood there behind Tim and didn't say a word.
“I need two other volunteers this morning, one person that is
exceptionally skilled with computers to fill a systems administrator position that
we have open, the other is for a person to do data input. The person that we
want for data input should have extensive experience at data base
management. If you are interested in either of these positions please see me
after this muster. Tomorrow things will be different. After the majority of the
workers had all departed Tim told the tree planters to elect a leader then go to
the farm manager at the orchard and tell him that you are there to plant trees.
Tim felt a little embarrassed that this mornings muster had been so
disorganized.
Once the tree planters left to go to work nine people remained. Tim
turned his attention toward them. “I assume you nine are the ones interested in
the computer jobs.” They all nodded their heads in assent. “Lets go over to the
dining room and get a cup,” Tim said as he turned and headed for the mess
hall. All nine traipsed along behind. Tim walked in, filled his cup and seated
himself at a long table for ten. He appeared to have his attention focused
elsewhere but was surreptitiously keeping an eye on the body language of his
five volunteers. One by one the volunteers poured a cup of coffee and took a
seat at the table. Tim started “I would like to have you folks decide between
yourselves who should have these two positions. I can tell you that we have
had the same systems administrator for the last ten years. She finished her
contract with the Government and is departing on the Mars Supply Two to
return to Earth. She will have about three days to break in her replacement.
The Government abolished her position so the Company authorized me to fill it
with a Company employee. *
“The data base management and data input job is a new position. The
person selected should have enough experience to establish a data base of the
twelve hundred people that now work for the Government and for the Company.
It should be arranged so that if I want twelve plumbers you can print out a list of
all plumbers with a thumbnail on each of them so I can just call the ones I want
that I think are the best qualified for the job I have in mind. If Carter, the
Company Manager wants to know the cubic footage of the new Paradise
cavern you can provide him with that information right away. In short I would
like all of the information on this facility and the personnel that are employed
here at our fingertips. How you handle the selections are up to you. You will
just have to talk it out and decide among yourselves who among you could best
handle these jobs. I will be back in an hour or so to see how you are making
out. If you make your selections before I get back call me on your cell phone.”
With that Tim got up and left the room. Before he went out the door he
looked back, they were all just sitting there with a dumbfounded look on their
faces. They had never heard of a job selection process that worked this way.
When he was out the door he called Hilda on her phone. “Hilda, I need a
favor, I left nine people sitting near your desk in the back of the dining room. I
told them to .... Tim described the situation. “ Would you go sit at your desk for a
few minutes and work on some paper work and just listen in on them? If you
can spare Carla invite her to your desk also. You two can ostensibly be
discussing menu's or something.” “Sure, Tim, I am going to enjoy this, I have
never heard of anything like it in my life, I am already eaten up with curiosity to
see how it turns out. “
Finally one of the women in the group said, “Well I suppose the first order
of business is to decide who is here for which job. Why don't those of you
interested in becoming system administrator move over to the next table.” With
that three men and one woman got up and moved to the next table. Two of
them refilled their coffee cups before sitting down. Of the remaining five people
four were women and one was a man. The woman who had instigated the
move commenced.
“My name 'Doris Rimbot,' I have a BA in business management from
Carver college, my minor was in computer science. I am married, my husbands
name is Ralph, he also works on the construction crew.” She said he was dead
set on this job because of the money and he just coerced her into coming
along. I don't know anything about construction but I have worked with data
base management systems for the last five years. I would very much like to get
out of laying cement blocks and digging in the mud.” At that point the man in
the group said lots of luck lady, he then got up and left the table. The other four
women just sat there. One of them started to say something then thought
better of it, got up wished the others luck, and left. None of the other three
wanted the job as badly as Doris did and apparently none of them considered
themselves as well qualified. “I guess you get the job, Doris,” one of them said.
Another said, “I would love to have this job but I am no where near as qualified
as you are Doris so I am withdrawing,” “Me too” said the last one. Doris
pressed the blue button on her phone and said “CALL Tim Erkin.” she got a
busy signal so she poured herself another cup of coffee.
The situation was almost the same at the other table. A wimpy little
prematurely balding man named “Surge Yugolov” turned out to be so much
better qualified than the others at computer technology that the other three
capitulated in a matter of minutes. Surge pushed the blue button on his phone
but before he could say anything Tim came through the door.
“Congratulations to you two, Surge and Doris, I am pleased to have you
aboard. Please meet me at the Government Headquarters Office1400. I will
show you around and introduce you to the rest of the staff. Neither Doris nor
Surge ever found out how Tim had gotten their names. It was pretty simple, as
soon as Carla knew the names she left Hilda's desk returned to the kitchen and
called Tim. She was the one talking to Tim when Doris got here busy signal
and invitation to leave voice mail.
Tim then went to his office, but before he could get in the door Carter
and Paul collared him and invited him to lunch at the Government dining room.
During lunch Tim briefed them and they briefed him on all the latest
developments on the facility.
Tim brought them up to date on construction, the tunnelers should
celebrate another breakthrough some time this week. And we will have a new
cavern to tame.
*I need to group the nine hundred people that we now have into work
crews so I have hired a person to set up and manage a data base for us. While
I was at it I found the systems administrator that you said you need, Paul. I
didn't think you would object to me making the selection since the Government
is no longer funding the position. If we ever become critically short of
construction workers I can always pull him but until that time comes he is yours.
Both of these people will be at headquarters at 1400 and I will introduce them
around. Maybe you can ask Alice to show Serge the ropes before she departs
next week. This new girl, Doris is pretty sharp so hopefully by next week she
will have enough of the data base set up to organize the construction crews.”
Until we breakthrough and tame Utopia we are going to have a lot of
surplus labor on our hands so if either of you can think of a project that will keep
people occupied let me know. There were seven hundred or more people
showed up this morning for assignments so after putting half of them to work I
just told the rest to go over and get the supply yard squared away. That has
been my day so far.”
“Paul and Carter just laughed.”Paul said we discussed establishing a
legal system with a police department, courts, judges, laws and everything.
Then we discussed the mess we have at City Hall and what we need to do to
straighten that out. Then we decided we better notify the Government to send
up several surveying crews. We also discussed the need to have an elected
Government to handle local issues, you know like a city counsel or something.
Nothing is firm yet on any of that but we'll keep you posted.
After lunch Tim had a chance encounter with the head of the
Government Scientists. “I have a question for you George, It's about Ivy, Abner
says it will grow anywhere there is an ordinary lit cavern and it doesn't need
special grow lights.” “If it does? Tim, I don't see how it would enrich our
atmosphere because without the grow lights it could not photosynthesize.”
“But,” answered Tim,”if it didn't photosynthesize, how could grow?” “Good
question, is Abner growing ivy now that is not exposed to grow lights?” “Yes, I
have seen them, they were just little half Inch shoots but they were bright
green.” “I'll check into it and let you know.”
At 1400 Tim met with the two new computer people at headquarters. He
introduced Doris and Serge to the rest of the staff. Tim then assigned Doris to a
computer station and showed her how to access the data base manager
program and the available data that was now scattered in various places on the
drive. “Hopefully I will have enough of a data base put together in the next few
days that you can select work crews based on any criteria you like.” “Hal
Johnson, my assistant will be using the data more than I will, he is the one that
will be assigning the crews. I will be more interested on the projects that we are
working on and how they are progressing. That proved to be all the instruction
that Doris ever required. After about a week Doris was able to give anyone in
management a list of anything they wanted in just a couple minutes. Everything
began running more smoothly.
With the size of Paradise cavern plus the Government cavern and the
Company cavern Tim found that he was spending most of his time moving from
one place to another. Tim thought what I need is a golf cart to get around in, I
am going to have to mention that to Carter next time I see him. Tim made a
note to ask Carter about Golf carts.
Tim next checked on the of the tunneling crew. “We are making much
better progress now that we are not working in those darned Mars Suits” the
foreman told Tim. I think we are about three or four days out from
breakthrough. The tunneling crews changed drilling techniques with each
change in soil conditions. When they came to solid rock the would blast or use
jack hammers, when they were in loose soil they just used old fashioned picks
and shovels, when they were in tight packed soil they used power drills to break
it up. They just whatever they needed as conditions changed. If they were in
loose soil then they had to reinforce the tunnel sides and top as they went
along.
All the loose soil they dug out was scooped up with a front end loader
and hauled to the farm or the orchard. The rocky soil and rocks would be used
as fill when they went to level the cavern floors.
Tim constantly had a crew making cement blocks on the surface. He
found that cement block shortages were holding up other construction so he
started using three crews on the surface making cement blocks when the
weather permitted. Two more crews were constantly leveling cavern floors and
placing cement blocks to make floors and roadways. They would only be
putting a roadway across the Paradise cavern and walking trails so as to not
ruin the aesthetic quality of the cavern.
As Tim was leaving Paradise cavern he ran into Carter. “What would you
think of getting a few golf carts for the managers to get around in?” “I am way
ahead of you on that one, Tim, since we have so much distance to cover now I
discussed it with Paul a couple weeks ago. He sent out a request for one
hundred indoor carts and thirty surface carts with wide wheels that wouldn't sink
into Mars sand. When I get their answer I will let you know.”
May 27, 2108: George was in The Company cavern so he decided to
stop by the farm and have a look at the Ivy. Abner showed him the small plants
that now had leaves and were about three Inches tall. “I don't understand
it,“said George, In theory this can't be. “ Abner answered, “That reminds me of
the story about the old man that took his grandson to the Zoo, the two of them
stood in front of the giraffe cage for several minutes watching the animals, then
finally the old man yanked on his grandson's arm and lead him away, Come on,
son there ain't no such animal. Just maybe, George there is such an animal.”
“In that case Abner, go ahead and spread your Ivy like Johnny apple seed, The
stuff won't create any problems until you try to get rid of it. There are colleges in
New England that have been trying to kill the stuff off for two hundred fifty years
but about two hundred years ago they found the solution to their problem.”
“What was that?” ask Abner. “Oh they just started calling their little group of
colleges 'THE IVY LEAGUE' ”.
May 30, 2108 : That evening of was Walter and Thelma's going away
party. It was celebrated much as they had celebrated New years Eve. Thelma
and Walter each made a speech then Paul and Carter each made a speech
telling them how much they would be missed and Rusty was there with a
cameraman to record the event for posterity and for use on the local news the
following evening.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 16

2009-04-09T00:58:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – Tims promotion
May 20, 2008: Carter and Tim were having a cup of coffee at the mess
hall that evening while Tim was waiting for Carla to finish. Carter said, “Tim how
would you like to have my job as Superintendent?” “Sure but where would that
leave you Carter?” “ The reason that you have been running all the operations
for the last few weeks is that I have been evaluating how you were able to
handle the job. No one other than me knows this but Walter and Thelma are
leaving Mars on the Next ship. You are a relative new comer to Mars but you
have performed perfectly. You have done everything that I have ask of you. All
I have to do is give you instructions in generalities, and never have I had to
spell out the specifics of what I wanted done. I have been offered Thelma's job
by The Company and I have selected you to take my job as Superintendent of
Construction.

That means that when we reach Utopia it will be up to you to make the
construction decisions. You have everything it takes, Tim, you have your
engineering degree, your background is clean and I feel I can rely on you. The
job is yours if you want it.” Of course I want it Carter, I just don't don't know what
to say”.
“There is one more thing you may want to consider, you have mentioned
that you intend to stay on Mars and have a family. As you know that you can
buy your way out of your contract with The Company for five hundred thousand
dollars but if you want I can get The Company to release Carla from her
contract. This is a one time deal, it is not something that will be an option for
you in the future but it can come now as part of your promotion package.” “Let
me talk to Carla about it and see what she says” Tim answered. By then Carla
had finished her clean up work at the kitchen and approached them. “Carla,
lets go home there is something we need to discus.”
Carla and Tim went Round and Round all evening pointing out the
advantages and disadvantages of the offer. In the end they decided that Tim's
raise to $40, 000.00 per month would more than make up for her loss of Income
and she could have a full time job at the bank working for Alan and Remar until
they started their family. When she had to quit work to give berth to their first
child she would not be fined. “I don't know anything about working in a bank,
Tim.” “ That's OK, neither did Alan or Remar when they opened First Colonial.
Now they are real bankers.” So it was decided that Carla should be released
from her company contract.
Tim picked Hal Johnson as his assistant. The man was so competent
and knowledgeable that you just couldn't overlook him. The men all seemed to
like him, maybe his only shortcoming was that he was not a visionary like Tim
and Carter.
Alan and Remar were thrilled to have a real live employee that they did
not have to pay air fare for. Carla told them, “I know nothing about banking or
any other kind of paper work, I have been in food service since high school.”
“That was our situation but we obtained all we needed to learn from email
exchanges with Harvard School of Business and these books here in our office.
I propose that we first put you on a training program using the same materials
that we used. I printed hard copies of all our lessons and I will feed them to you
as fast as you can absorb them.” We can't afford to pay you more than $500.00
per week while you are in training but as soon as you start working we will pay
the same wage you have been earning.
March 27, 2008: Carla began training for a career in banking. At first it
was all very confusing and at times she thought that she would never get it.
Then little by little she made progress. She got to the point that when she read
something she could see how it related to something she had previously
learned. Luckily she had already learned to touch type on a keyboard and use
a ten key adding machine. After the initial shock she began to progress rapidly.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 15

2009-04-08T00:54:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – First Breakthrough into Paradise
February 10, 2108: The drillers broke through into the first of the new
caverns. The Talk Show host on Radio MARS interrupted all the music stations
“Guess What Folks, We have a breakthrough. Stay tuned to your talk radio
station for all the details.”
There was much fanfare in the community. Special meals were served
and there was a general celebration. That one thing was still lacking but they
managed to make a gala day of it anyway. The day of the breakthrough Thelma
declared a holiday and gave everyone the rest of the day off, except for the
cooks and a few other key people. It really wasn't all that great to have the rest
of the day off, it was almost quitting time anyway.

When cavern was opened the workers were taken aback by it's
awesome beauty, unlike the existing caverns it was populated by stalagmites,
stalactites and majestic columns. It must have been broad daylight on the
surface of the planet because the effect of the sunlight trickling through the
fissures was gorgeous.
Stalactites are formed by the deposition of calcium carbonate and other
minerals, which is precipitated from mineralized water solutions. The
corresponding formation on the floor underneath a stalactite is known as a
stalagmite. Given enough time, these formations can meet, resulting in a
formation known as a column.
Loud noises and voices created echo's that vibrated off the walls. There
were several flowing rivers and streams and magnificent little lakes dotted the
floor. The cavern was only one mile wide where they were crossing but faded
off into the horizon at both sides as far as their most powerful portable lights
could penetrate. Subsequent measurements indicated that this new cavern
covered 14 square miles at floor level. Tim, standing there awe struck, in his
space suit knew that this was to be a national park and first class recreation
area. It was as close as you could get on Mars to a forest. Later that day when
they were back in the Government cavern Tim described it to Carter, Thelma
and Walter. Tim then took the three of them on a guided tour of the cavern.
They took along a lighting crew with the best portable lights available in the
colony. Thelma remarked, ”This place looks like paradise.“ ”So it was that
Paradise Park got it's name.”
In their exploration of the cavern, up against one wall they came across a
small cave. In front of the cave they found the remnants of a fire pit. On further
examination of the site they found a dozen or more petroglyph's depicting a
hunt. The hunters all had two arms and two legs. The animal they hunted
looked like a cross between a bison and an elephant.
“This is fantastic, do you realize that we are looking at the first evidence
ever found that proves that manlike beings inhabited this planet at some ancient
time.
Walter immediately tried to call someone on his cell phone but there was
no service available. They scurried back to the Government cavern and Walter
placed his call. The scientist who answered, upon hearing what they had found,
called six or seven other scientists and a photographer. Walter told the lighting
crew to take a break but remain where they were.
An hour or so went by before seven people in Mars suits approached
from the Government housing area. The entire party returned to the place
where they had found the artifacts. The scientists were ecstatic. You could just
sense that this was the reason that they had signed on to work on Mars in the
first place was the hope of finding something like this. They had the
photographer take dozens of pictures from every angle then they took samples
of material from the fire pit for carbon age dating. At that point Tim, Carter,
Thelma and Walter took their leave. “This place seems to be in good hands so
we are going to have dinner, Thelma informed them. The scientists hardly
noticed their departure.
After dinner Tim went over to MARS-TV and told Rusty about the find
and the cave. Rusty had already heard about the find but hadn't had time to go
inspect the site for himself before he had to go on the air with the local news.
He invited Tim to stick around and be his guest on the show. Tim was a little
uneasy being on camera but he stayed and described what they had found to
the entire community. “For the first time the news from here is going to
dominate the news on Earth for quite a while.” he told Tim after the show. “I am
now going to grab a photographer and get some pictures myself and then get
this on the internet. We are going to be famous, Tim.” Rusty sounded so
excited that Tim had to smile.
For the two days following the discovery all of the networks on Earth did
carry Tim's description of the find. After that they started carrying the opinions
of Scientists and Mars management people. After about a week an important
political assassination occurred in Germany and the media moved on to
greener pastures.
In the months that followed they would seal and pressurize the remaining
caverns en route to Utopia . They had already chosen the name of Cavern City
as the name of the Capital City to be built in Utopia.
February 16, 2108: The crew started tunneling the next tunnel and it was
to be a whopper, 940 feet with an offset to the right. The work was miserable
because they were still working in their Mars suits. No one liked working in
those Mars suits. The temperature in the unpressurized cavern was just above
freezing but the suits were heated and well insulated. It was just that they were
so clumsy to move around in.
A week went by and the tunnel was in about one hundred feet when one
of the workers summoned the crew chief. “Joe here is acting funny, you better
get him back to the clinic and have the doc check him over. Two men lead and
then carried Joe back through the airlock then got him out of his suit. By this
time he was unconscious. They carried him to the clinic and the doctors
dropped what they were doing and went to work on him. Dr. Rivera
immediately took over the case. “Thanks, Guys we will give him a complete
examination and try and work up a diagnosis but in the meantime I suggest that
you have your crew chief get everyone out of that cavern and out of their Mars
Suits until we know just what we are dealing with here.
February 17, 2108: Tim heard about Joe's mysterious ailment on talk
radio. The next morning after breakfast Tim stopped by the clinic to see how
Joe was getting along and Juan told Tim that he had passed away shortly after
being brought in. Juan also said that another member of the community had
come down with the same ailment. The good news was that this person was
working on the surface in a Mars suit. Joe's autopsy showed that he had died
from inhaling Carbon Dioxide. Dr Rivera scanned the new patient for signs of
Carbon Dioxide poisoning and bingo he was suffering from the same thing.
They then tested the Mars Suits these two men were wearing and they tested
OK. “We think you have been inhaling Carbon Dioxide and that is why you are
sick” Dr. Rivera told his patient. “No honest Dr. I didn't breathe in and I had my
helmet off for less than a minute.” “Why, in God's name did you take it off in the
first place Mr Salva?” Because it was closing in on me, I just couldn't resist
taking it off for just a few seconds and I didn't breathe in while it was off.”
Mystery solved, he had his helmet off for less than a minute while he held his
breath then when he put it back on he had to take a deep breath before the suit
had a chance to clean the Carbon Dioxide out of the helmet. Tim put out a
memo to all personnel wearing Mars suits in unpressurized atmosphere, that if
you became overcome with claustrophobia while wearing your suit, no matter
how Inconvenient it was return immediately to the nearest pressurized
atmosphere before removing your helmet. He explained that they had recently
had one death and one serious illness from workers doing this. Once Tims
memo and the grapevine word of mouth got out then they had no more
problems with this mysterious affliction. Talk radio discussed little else that day.
February 25, 2108: The eighth day of tunneling. They ran a pressure
test and Paradise passed with flying colors. Late on February 26 Paradise had
been pressurized and atmosphere was introduced. Tomorrow the men could
work without suits. If there was a breach they would have plenty of time to
dawn their Mars suits before the atmosphere all escaped.
February 26, 2108: The crews assigned to enlarge tunnels went to work
on the first tunnel, the one that ran from the government cavern to Paradise.
Tunnel enlarging proved to be a more time consuming task than digging the
tunnel in the first place. Much of the work had to be done by hand and
wherever they found the walls or ceiling of the tunnel was of loose material it
had to be concrete reinforced. What worked best was having three crews at a
time working on enlarging and stabilizing the tunnels.
When the crews finished enlarging the tunnel it looked very professional.
It had a paved highway for a floor that allowed for two lanes of vehicular traffic.
Everything that needed reenforcement had been reinforced with concrete and
rebar. The surfaces were all smooth and the tunnel was lit with a bank of lights
that ran down the top. There was a pedestrian walking path on one side with
additional lights spaced four feet apart. The largest power equipment on Mars
could easily navigate the tunnel once it had been finished.
March 1, 2108: Tim, Carla, Juan and Lupe were becoming fond of Mars
sports and looked forward to a game of shuffle board every evening. The four
courts in the government cavern were adequate for the three hundred people
that were on the planet before Tims group had arrived but it seemed as though
recently they were always busy in the evenings. Tim and Juan finally gave up
waiting for a court after an hour. Tim checked around and found that the
croquet courts the situation was the same.
March 2, 2108: Tim discussed the matter with Carter before morning
muster. “Carter we need more croquet and shuffle board courts, the ones we
have are always busy, I was thinking that there is plenty of room in Paradise for
such facilities as well as an additional gymnasium. If you have any surplus
crews could some of them be assigned to constructing a new recreation
facility?” “Never volunteer Tim, you just found yourself a job. Once you have
the new facility functioning you can dismantle the old facilities in the
government cavern. I think we have some extra equipment for those sports in
the supply yard but you will probably have to order additional equipment from
the company.”
After muster Carter and another man accompanied Tim to Paradise
cavern. “Carter, look at this hot pool and this warm river, if this water is safe
perhaps the people could use it for relaxing baths and if that stream is safe
maybe it would support fish. We could always breed the fish in enclosed ponds
then move them to this stream once they were too large to fit through the exit
mesh. That would give us two uses, we could go fishing when we were off duty
and we could harvest the fish for the mess hall. We could also raise fish in the
river and lake in The Company cavern now that it is heated.” “The fish for The
Company cavern are already halfway here from Earth.
Carter walked up. “Frank here and I were just coming to inspect the pool.
Frank has his water testing kit with him, any more great suggestions?”
“Yes this where I would like to put the new recreation center and gym,
that way we could incorporate the hot pool with the other recreational facilities.”
“Suits me Tim, we could end up with a first class facility here.”
At muster Carter asked for volunteers to move and enlarge the sports
center to Paradise. Fifteen people that were not working on anything else at
the moment volunteered. Carter then announced that until further notice
anyone who had run out of work should report to Tim in the Paradise cavern to
see if he needed any additional help.
Tim decided to put the new recreation area on the other side of the
parking lot by the spa. The new gym would be integrated into the recreation
area. Paradise was rapidly becoming a recreational facility.
At least once and sometimes as many as three times a day Tim would
get a phone call from Carter asking him to check on the progress of the
tunneling crew and find out if they needed anything or Carter might ask him to
check on the tables in the dining room, there had been some complaints of
benches that did not feel solid when you sat on them, or Tim would be asked to
check up on the cement block production on the surface. One thing after
another Carter was asking Tim to handle for him and Carter was seldom seen
out in the field. He could always be found in his office, knee deep in paper
work.
On several occasions Carter had asked Tim to handle the morning
muster. He had a clever way of asking, he would start the phone conversation
after Tim answered by saying, “Here is what I need to have you do when you
call muster in the morning, Tim,” then Carter would start listing everything that
he wanted Tim to do.” Tim was becoming Carters assistant by default. Carter
just kept putting Tim in charge of projects.
The recreation center turned out to be a bigger job than Tim had
anticipated. At times Tim had as many as thirty five people working on the
project. Tim was constantly being called away to handle some pressing matter
for Carter. Tim divided the people working on the project in Paradise into two
groups then had the crews pick a crew chief for each crew. Tim delegated
responsibility to the crew chiefs to handle things when Carter had him out doing
other things.
May 15, 2008: “This is looking really great Tim, what do you want me to
work on today?” “I am sure that we will think of more things as we go along
Rob but for now we have about completed everything that I had on the plan that
Carter approved. Besides the spa and the warm river we now have a nine hole
chip and put golf course, ten shuffle board courts ten croquet courts and ten
horseshoe pits. There are even public bathrooms and a new gym. We need
more equipment but it's all on order.”
No longer did people say, “let's go over to the Paradise cavern,” now
they just said, “Let's go to the park.”
May 16, 2008: Abner was inspecting the Paradise cavern. All of the
improvements had been made in the large center and to the left of where the
tunnel entered. That was the beautiful part of the cavern. He noticed that
beyond the tunnel entrance and off to the right the ceiling dropped off sharply.
There was, at the far end, off to the right an area of approximately two square
miles where the ceiling ranged in height from forty to fifty feet off the cavern
floor. The floor was almost level. There were no stalagmites or stalactites at
this end of the cavern. There was a stream of cool clear water dividing the area
down the center. Abner got the picture instantly. Here was the future home of
the orchard. At the far end of the area, the approximately one square mile that
lay behind the stream the air temperature was noticeably warmer. Here, he
thought would be the place where he would raise tropical plants.
Abner got on the phone and asked Tim “Where are right now, good
buddy?” Tim said “I am over doing some finishing touches to the recreation
area.” “When you finish there would you mind skipping down to the small end
of the cavern, there is something I want to show you.”
“This is what I have in mind for this area, Tim.” Abner then went on to
explain his vision of the orchard and the tropical plant farm. “Here is what I
propose, Tim, lets build another farm right here in this two square mile area,
another farm house, barn and everything. The Yang's could move over here
and tend these plants. The job has gotten too big for the six of us at the old
farm already. I have been thinking of asking you to assign more permanent
people as farmers but I didn't know where to house them. It is important that
the people working full time on the farm live on the farm. What I would like to
see is four people to take the Yang's place at the old farm, that would give us a
crew of six full time permanent farmers. Then we will need four more people to
live here on this side with the Yang's and tend the orchards and the tropical
plants.”
“Do you already have people in mind to fill these jobs, Abner?” “As a
matter of fact I do, I have kept a close eye on the people that you have detailed
to the farm since it opened and I could give you the list of names any time you
want them.” “You can give me the list today, right now if you like. Figure out
how many people you can keep busy for the next month, let me know the
number and the skills you need and I will assign them to you in the morning at
muster. You can keep them as long as you have work for them. Surplus labor
is my biggest problem right now. It goes without saying that I will need Walter,
Thelma, Carter and George to consent to the project and have a scientific crew
approve it for environmental impact but I know already that I will get approval
and the scientists are also looking for projects. I can get some of them on it
today.”
Tim was delighted to have this project. It gave him something for the
people to do. He put a call in right then for Carter, Walter, Thelma and George
to see if they were available. They were all available and said they would meet
Tim and Abner there in less than an hour.
While they were waiting Tim and Abner explored the area further and
made several more suggestions to each other.
Once they had all arrived, Tim and Abner showed them the area for the
proposed project and described the ideas that they had been kicking around.
Everyone seemed thrilled with the idea. George said “When the other scientists
and I were looking at the cave find we made a quick pass through here and one
of the other scientists had remarked, 'this is where we should have put the farm'
I am sure you will have no objection from the environmental establishment.“
Within two hours it was a done deal. There were quite a few items that
had to be ordered from the Company but they would arrive in December when
Mars Runner made it's first call on Mars.
May 17, 2008: At muster Tim called out the names of the eight people
that Abner had given him. They were four married couples. Tim knew they
were all anxious to work on the farm full time but he asked them anyway, just for
the record. Tim suggested that they work out the living arrangements with the
other farmers. Of course they could not move in until the new farm house was
completed.
Tim then asked for the 100 volunteers that Abner had said he could use
and assigned them to the task of building the new far for as long as they were
needed.
Abner told the group at muster that within less than four years Mars
would be producing most of the food consumed on Mars including bananas,
pine apple, coffee and coconuts. There was one more big food group to go,
grain. They would find the ideal spot but it would have to be in some yet
unseen cavern.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 14

2009-04-07T00:53:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – A bank is organized
February 5, 2108: Alan Jeffery, and Remar Otton two of the men who
had completed their Government contracts and remained on Mars as private
citizens decided that they had just figured out the perfect small business to go
into. They arranged through Thelma to lease a lot in The Company cavern
business district right next to where the Burger Boy's building stood. They went
to work building a store front with their own hands. They were able to negotiate
for and acquire from the Government a surplus safe and a good supply of rebar
reinforcing rods used to reinforce concrete. They paid a couple of men that
worked as welders to come over and weld a metal frame on all four sides of
their store front then they used Mars cement to cover the walls. Outside the
walls they stacked the usual cement blocks and when they were finished they
bought enough scrap metal to have a front door welded together and hinges
made. When they were through they owned the most in-penetrable building in
the colony. They then told Thelma and Walter that wanted some kind of charter

making their business legal. There was a lot of consternation all around but
they finally got their permission from The Company and from the Government.
The First Colonial Bank of Mars was open for business. The money poured in,
they soon had over two million dollars on deposit in their safe. They did not pay
any interest but rather charged their customers a small fee for the service of
safeguarding their money. They were able to acquire some surplus computer
equipment from the Government and started printing checks which were really
just IOU's in small amounts and selling them at the bank.
“In case you hadn't noticed Alan we don't know diddle squat about
running a bank.” “I realize that Remar, but we are both intelligent men and we
can learn.” “Here is what I propose, lets advertise and hire an agent/consultant
on Earth that does know about banking. We can then have him locate a
correspondence course from some banker training school that will be willing to
email us all of our study material and send up the most important books on
banking on the next supply ship”
They both approved of that plan and emailed an ad to one of the New
York newspapers to run in their Classified section under help wanted. They
were flooded with emails which they read aloud to each other then selected the
three best qualified and sent them an email requesting a full resume. They
eventually settled on the best qualified candidate and hired him for just a
nominal consulting fee. They then found a qualified detective agency and ran a
thorough background check on the man. He came out squeaky clean. Then
the email started flying back and forth from them and their consultant.
Their agent had spoken with one of his old professors at Harvard
University school of business who was willing to undertake educating them via
email. Shortly study plans began to arrive by email. They had a lot of time on
their hands so they started knocking out the lessons at a record pace. Within
six months they had the books that he had sent up on the supply ship and were
both becoming banking experts. They had their agent pick out a good selection
of banking business equipment and had that sent up. They began to offer more
services at the bank. They arranged a form that their clients could sign
directing that all future payments for wages were to be deposited in First
Colonial bank. Since they had all the latest banking equipment they had to add
on another room to the bank. They found two women on Mars who had once
held responsible positions in banks on Earth and persuaded them to come in
after working on their regular jobs and handle the paper flow at the bank. They
had established a correspondent bank relationship with big name stock and
bond brokerage firms and with the largest bank in the United States. Things got
a little sticky when they applied to become an FDIC member bank. There were
just so many things about First Colonial that did not fit the FDIC mold. It took
them almost six months but with the help of two U.S. Senators finally began to
print on the bottom of all their forms the magic words “Member FDIC” They
could now exchange bank drafts with their New York Correspondent bank and
employed a trust officer at their correspondent bank to temporarily handle
investments for their bank. They knew that as soon as there was a demand for
borrowed money on Mars they would be financing that development through
their bank but until then the money would be earning a good return invested on
Earth. At that point they began to pay interest on deposits and more money
poured in. The workers on Mars liked having their nest eggs on Mars where
they could keep an eye on them. By the time Utopia was sealed they hoped
that their little bank could justifiably claim that they were holding over one billion
dollars in deposits.
The Agent that they had hired in New York had no interest in moving to
Mars but he recommended a young man that had excellent credentials. First
Colonial hired the man and his wife, bit the bullet and paid the one million dollar
fee to have them moved to Mars. When Abe and Lilly Schuman arrived on
Mars the bank began to look a little like and operate a lot like a real bank. Lilly
was installed as the head teller and cashier. Abe was given the title of Manager,
Abe also took on the duties of loan officer. Allen and Remar ended up doing
pretty much what Abe told them to do.
With the arrival of the second ship after opening the bank they received
two million dollars in ones and fives which they promptly made available for
circulation on Mars. They bought the bank drafts that they had sold with small
bills. In the meantime when the first ship arrived after opening the bank Burger
Boy's had received their three million dollars in change which they deposited in
the bank so now there was more money in circulation than they would need
until Utopia opened up. The people on Mars tended to think in terms of all
progress and development as “When Utopia Opens”.
Paul, Tim and Carla thought it was a godsend having the bank here
because since Mars wages were not taxable the IRS paid little attention to
transfers of cash to and from banks on Earth and First Colonial Bank on Mars.
Long before Utopia opened Tim and Carla had over a million dollars on deposit.
The bankers were happy because they were the only bank in the system that
didn't have to anticipate the arrival of inspectors from the FDIC, although they
were a member bank it was just too damned expensive to send an FDIC
inspector up to Mars to inspect or audit First Colonial. Neither the FDIC nor the
bank wanted sensitive information traveling back and forth by email so they
were largely left alone. It also might be noted that the FDIC had little doubt
about the solvency of First Colonial Bank.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 13

2009-04-06T00:50:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – Swap Meet and Currency
January 21, 2108: Back on Mars work had started on the first of the new
tunnels and had progressed smoothly. This first tunnel would run eight hundred
feet.
The new arrivals were extremely qualified people with a good attitude. It
was difficult for Tim to find enough work to keep them all busy until they made
the first breakthrough. The air lock had been set where the dig had started.
The dig had not turned up any new diamonds but they were finding many
semiprecious stones that would make great jewelry.

SWAP MEET
A lot of people had accumulated things that they no longer needed or
used so they decided to hold the first swap meet on Mars. It was really a kind
of pitiful beginning to what was to become a Martian tradition. Surplus personal
property would always be in short supply even after stores began selling
merchandise. There were dozens of vendors and hundreds of buyers but
everyone needed change for a $100.00 bill.
CURRENCY PROBLEMS
Most people had plenty of cash and no place to spend it. Making change
was a problem for those buying or selling anything. Most of the cash was in
large bills. There was a real shortage of small bills. Almost no one missed the
coins because nothing on Mars would be sold for odd change for a while yet. At
least not until Burger Boy's opened. Bob told Tim that when the next ship
arrived he would have three million Dollars in change but that wouldn't be until
May. Until then people were just writing out IOU's and signing them. Then that
person would pass the IOU along to someone else and sometimes the IOU that
someone had written would find its way back to the one that wrote it. Some
people kept track of their outstanding IOU's and some didn't. Everybody took
IOU's willingly because that was about the only medium of exchange other than
large bills. People began to get concerned about all the money they had
stashed in their unlocked homes.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 12

2009-04-05T00:48:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – Earth is having problems
Never in history had the difference between the developed nations and
the third world been so pronounced.
Nuclear proliferation treaties had not been effective. There were, by the
year 2100 more than sixty nations on Earth that possessed nuclear weapons.
Some had delivery systems and some just relied suicide bombers that carried
some sort of nuclear devise in suit cases.
Around 2050 coal liquefaction had been perfected to the point where
100% clean burning, non polluting liquid fuel could be made from coal. Many
countries on Earth that did not have petroleum had enormous coal reserves.
There was no longer any demand for petroleum or products made from
petroleum.

Lithium Ion batteries had been perfected and powered all transportation
equipment, they could be recharged in under ten minutes.
Canada and Australia were the only two remaining food exporting
countries. All the other developed countries had to scramble to keep up with
feeding their own burgeoning populations.
So many people in the third world were dying of malnutrition and
starvation every year that the total population of the planet peaked at nine
billion and had begun to recede. Many of these third world countries had
acquired nuclear weapons.
With the loss of oil revenue the middle east had become even more of a
powder keg. Because of the wealth created during the years when petroleum
dominated Earth's fuel needs there remained several thousand people in the
middle east who had a net worth in excess of fifty million dollars. The rest of the
people living in the area lived in disparate abject poverty. Death from
malnutrition and starvation numbered in the thousands every day. The very rich
managed to place the blame for the unfortunate circumstances of the poor onto
the developed nations. Jihad was more popular than it had ever been. It was
said by one Western Philosopher of those in the middle east who had not died
of starvation, “Hatred of the West was the only thing that was keeping them
alive.”
Africa had not fared as badly as you might imagine. Disease and hunger
had taken so many that the land was beginning to recover. The Africa of 2107
once again began to resemble the Africa that the White Man had first visited
seven hundred years earlier.
The story in Asia could be summed up in one word, overpopulation.
During the twenty first century many Asian nations had pushed their way to the
forefront in the areas of science, industry and world trade, only to fail because
they were unable to control their growing populations. No matter how
industrious they were they just could not feed all their people.
This was the situation on the planet Earth in the year 2107. The
international situation had become a ticking time bomb.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 11

2009-04-04T00:36:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER - Planning the March to Utopia
January 17, 2108: That afternoon when Tim returned to Carter's office
there were three construction workers and a couple Government scientists
going over some drawings on Carters desk. “Tim, take a look at this. The big
cavern which I think we should start calling Utopia for now, is about six miles
from this wall in the Government cavern. There are smaller caverns along the
way that we are going to have to secure and pressurize before advancing and
the way I see it we are going to have to tunnel for up to two miles. Our biggest
problem is that these caverns are not all on the same level. See this long
narrow cavern right here it is deeper than the others but once we reach the floor
of this long slender cavern right here it will enter right into Utopia on the same
level. so it looks like we are going to have to tunnel down to that sliver before
we can continue. Setting the downgrade into that cavern will be a real problem.
We will have at least five, maybe six smaller caverns to secure and pressurize
before we reach Utopia .

How long do you estimate it will take us to dig two miles of tunnel
Johnson?” “Let's see” said Johnson, “if we can complete one foot of tunnel per
hour average it would take roughly ten thousand hours, that would be about
seven months of continuous tunneling if we worked around the clock. That
could vary considerably depending on soil conditions and problems that we
might be encountered in sealing off the small caverns that we go through. We
have six hundred workers now and can expect at least three hundred more
before we reach Utopia
. “I would say that our tunneling crews would have to work in Mars suits
a lot of the time. Of course once a new cavern had been pressurized they
could headquarter in that cavern. The men will need 24 hours rest after working
eight hours and we will need eight men working at all times so that would mean
a tunneling crew of 32 men. All things considered I would say we will reach
Utopia in one to two years. At least that gives a workable time frame.”
“Once a tunnel is opened it will need to be enlarged. We will need four
more crews of eight men each for this job. They should not start work on a
tunnel until the tunneling crew has moved on to the next tunneling job so they
do not get into each others way. The crews doing the enlarging can use the dirt
they remove for top soil at the farm or for fill dirt in leveling the caverns. The
tunneling crews working for breakthrough will be digging approximately eight
foot by eight foot tunnels, the second crews will be enlarging the tunnels to 25
feet wide by 20 feet high.”
“Your next Fossum, how long will it take to seal off the small caverns and
pressurize them? “Does your chart show how many fissures need to be sealed
between here and Utopia, yes there is a count here for each cavern and a total
of up to one hundred fissures but that is only an estimate. There average width
on the chart appears to be three or four feet. “I estimate that a crew can seal
one fissure per day. That takes into account that the workers can not be
exposed to the surface for more than two hours at a time. All things considered
there is probably three to four months work there if we have the materials and if
we could only have one crew working at a time.” “Why don't you explain how
you go about sealing a fissure, Dave.” “We locate the fissures that need to be
filled by placing a bright light in the cavern then going out after dark in Mars
suits and making a visual observation of where the light penetrates the surface.
Then we flag the location so that we can find it the next day. To plug the hole
we dig out around the fissure, usually an eight foot hole and down three or four
feet until we hopefully hit bedrock. Then we lay in an eight foot piece of circular
one Inch tempered plywood. We then mix the concrete and pour it into hole
about eight Inches deep. When the concrete has cured we lay down eight foot
long pieces of rebar, criss crossed and wire the joints together. we pour fresh
concrete about one foot thick then when that has cured we lay on another
course of rebar followed by another course of concrete. The rest we just fill with
Mars soil until it is level with the surface.” This will take a crew about eight hours
in working time but they can be working on other fissures while the cement is
curing. Also keep in mind that when the winds come up on the surface we
can't do any work outside. Twice a year for almost a month at a time the winds
are too strong to do any work on the surface. There will probably be times
when opening one of the caverns will be delayed for a considerable time waiting
for the wind to die down.”
“How about installing and moving the air locks can one crew keep up,
Johnson fielded that question, “That is a definite yes but they would be kept
busy. As long as we have plenty of workers we should probably assign two
crews. One crew can set the small temporary locks while the other can set the
larger permanent sliding air locks once the tunnels have been enlarged. Can
our system handle the load of pressurizing that much new space. “Certainly not
all at once but if we only had to do one small cavern per week the answer would
be yes, We have some old oxygen making equipment over in supply that could
keep the atmosphere breathable without running any risk at all. Lets say we
can handle the atmosphere problem throughout the whole system as we go but
none of what we have said so far applies to Utopia .”
“If any of the small caverns turn out to be larger than anticipated then we
will install additional atmosphere apparatus along the way. While we are at it
we might as well have several more systems on order. We do have three
backup systems in the supply yard now but it is important that we always
maintain twice as much atmosphere equipment as we need so if we have an
equipment failure we will still have atmosphere. We could install the new
systems as we go and keep ordering more back up systems from the Company.
Actually the more area that we are providing atmosphere for the safer we will
be. We should discuss our needs in this area with the government employee
who handles the atmosphere now and assign more workers to that function. If
they are not needed on a given day he can release the workers to perform other
work until he does need them but they should all be trained to install and
maintain these systems. When we reach Utopia we'll need several new
systems to maintain atmosphere in a cavern that large. I won't know just how
many until we get there and I make some calculations.”
As for our maps and our estimation of the size and shape of the caverns
we will be going through keep in mind that this information was gathered
several years ago by flying over the area and taking infrared pictures. For a
number of reasons they may not be completely accurate.
“How many men can we spare now to start digging?” “With all of the
problems that I know we will encounter, my estimate is that we will need, fifty or
more. That would cover all of the support operations. I suggest that today we
select who we want on our tunneling crews, gather our equipment and start
them out in the morning under Johnson's supervision. Our first tunnel is going
to be a little over eight hundred feet long, we have plenty of people and we can
work them four hours on and 24 hours off. We won't need to set the air tight
seal until they are in seven hundred ninety feet. Then we will set the door and
the men will have to start working in Mars suits for the last ten feet to
breakthrough.”
Johnson and Tim spent the rest of the day going over lists of employees
and picking out the men that they wanted on the first four crews. The men were
notified by cell phone that they would start tunneling the next morning. They
were then asked to join Johnson in the supply depot and start locating all the
equipment they could find. A concrete block wall was erected in front of the
tunnel site but set back 20 feet to give the men room to work. The electricians
ran power over to the site and trenches were dug to catch the debris. Any of
the soil removed would be moved to where the farm was being set up. The
farmers could use it to make topsoil or the crews could use it in the wall that
would run along the river to protect the lake and stream from being
contaminated by the crop runoff.
January 19, 2108: Among the cargo Items unloaded from Mars Supply
One was the new equipment for processing human waste. As soon as Carter
saw it and read the setup manual he set two crews to installing the equipment.
One of the Scientists looking over the equipment decided that the machine
would fit in the small cavern attached to the Government cavern that had been
used as public bath rooms. Once it had been installed men drilled a four Inch
hole down from the surface and attached a power vent. Then put an air lock on
the door leading into the Government cavern. When the machine was in use
they would shut the air lock and work in Mars suits until they had finished
processing the waste matter.
The machine separated the matter into three parts. The liquid was
processed through reverse osmosis equipment and then allowed to run off into
the crevasse where they had been dumping everything. The non
biodegradable matter, ie the plastic porta potty liners or any other non
biodegradable matter that had found it's way into the sewer system, were
compressed into bricks and spat out the front of the machine where workers
stacked them to the side of the cavern. The machine then processed the
biodegradable mass which came out as a kind of mulch which was odorless
and and only slightly damp. All harmful bacteria had been removed but the
mulch was still rich in nutrients. The men captured this material in large plastic
garbage bags. Once the machine had finished processing the batch for the day
the crew turned on the power vent to the surface and opened a vent pipe that
ran along side the air lock. It only took a few seconds to exhaust all the stale air
in the cavern. Once the air was clean they could they would close the vents
and inject a strong ammonia based deodorant into the small cavern and open
the air lock. It took three men working in Mars suits about two hours per day to
process the waste. The result was about five hundred pounds of fertile mulch
and thirty or so plastic bricks that could be very valuable as light weight
building materials.
The mulch was taken over to the farm where Abner could combine it with
mineral nitrates and other fertilizers before it was mixing it with Mars dirt to
make top soil. Abner would soon need lots of top soil.
This daily processing chore was considered to be an undesirable job.
There were plenty of volunteers when they learned that they only had to work
about a four hour day.
January 20, 2108: The farm was coming along nicely. A large farm
house, lab and barn were being constructed. This would be the only house on
Mars with a fully functional kitchen, two bathrooms and four bedrooms. The
reason for the four bedrooms was that both couples had indicated that they
were probably on Mars to spend the rest of their lives and both couples
intended to start a family. Tim really liked the farm couples and it got him to
thinking about how they were making a commitment to live out their lives on
Mars after only being here a few days.
Tim asked Abner “What was it you said you wanted to show me next time
I got over this way” “The Ivy, Tim, The Ivy, look at this stuff.” By then the little
green shoots were up almost half an Inch. This stuff is like a weed, it will grow
anywhere even in ordinary cave light, it looks pleasing to the eye, especially
against these stark cavern walls and it will improve our atmosphere, or at least
take some of the load off our atmosphere apparatus.” “Sounds good but maybe
we better discuss it with the scientists before we start spreading the stuff
around.”
That evening Tim and Carla had a long talk. “How do you feel about
Mars now Carla?” I like it so far, it seems more vibrant and alive and it certainly
has a low crime rate. The work that I do is the same as I was doing on Earth
but the people are nicer to work with and the way The Company bends over
backward to provide us anything we ask for is wonderful. The only thing that
bothers me is that my biological clock is running and I would like to start a
family. We could start one here on Mars but there would be fines and penalties,
you know.” “I want a family also Carla, in a little over a year we will break into
Utopia Cavern and even if it takes two more years to seal and pressurize, we
are still looking at living in Utopia when our kids start school.”
“There we will have regular streets, with electric cars darting around, we
will have schools and churches and businesses. Bob told me that one of the
other prime investors in Mars Colony, Inc. is the family that owns all the biggest
store chain on Earth but they want to hold off opening up on Mars until Utopia is
ready”.
“OK Carla, no more contraceptives. This is our home now and I love the
place. When our contract is up we can either renew once or stay on Mars and
go into business. I already know that The Company and Government are going
to sell off most of the real estate in Utopia to developers, businesses and
private citizens. If things go as I see them going we will be in on the ground
floor of the nicest city in the solar system. Besides I think I would have a lot
more difficulty in adjusting to Earth gravity than I had in adjusting to Mars
gravity.”

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 10

2009-04-03T23:06:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER - Mars Supply One Docks
January 15, 2108: The first ship to arrive on Mars since the one that Tim
had arrived docked at Mars orbiter. Tim kind of smiled when he saw 35 new
faces step off the elevator and start looking at their new home. Of course
Walter and Thelma were there to greet them. It wasn't the same as when Tim
and Carla's group had arrived. This time the colony was ready for them. Tim
and Carter and several other community leaders were conducting the tours.
Each couple and single were assigned to a new house that had been
constructed for them. The houses had already been furnished with everything
they would need from supply except for their phones, and their TV sets, those
were still being unloaded. The hours for serving meals had been doubled and
a hot meal would be served to everyone, Including the new arrivals. The

kitchen staff was a little short handed and there was a need for the new
equipment that was arriving on The Mars Supply One but everything still went
smoothly. Half of the new people were fed lunch at the Government kitchen
and half at The Company kitchen. All of the meals would be handled in this
manner until the new equipment had been installed in the Company kitchen.
When the new arrivals were shown the house that they had been assigned they
were told that they could trade with each other if two of them agreed. The work
crews did not have to make three hundred new houses to accommodate the
three hundred new people because so many of those who where already there
had moved in with each other, there were quite a few vacancies.
Fourteen of the Government people that had been on Mars for the term
of their contract were returning to Earth but eight who were eligible to return had
opted to stay on without a job and become self employed. There had been
negotiations, people involved, the Company and the Government. The people
who wanted to stay prevailed. The Company and the Government agreed that
they could remain as citizens of Mars. They had to reimburse the colony
$5,000.00 per month for their board, room and medical care but they were free
unemployed citizens of Mars. If these people wanted they could receive a
credit of one hundred thousand dollars for not returning to Earth. If they ever
decided to return they would be required to pay the prevailing rate for passage.
Several others who were eligible to return had extended their contracts for a
few more years and remained in their jobs.
This time around the new arrivals were given up to a week to become
acclimated to their new surroundings before starting to work. Oh my, how
things had changed since Tim and Carla had arrived. Tim had been given a
week off before starting work but that was so he could build a house. All of the
homes, new and existing now had a bathroom with flush toilets and hot and
cold running water, electricity and a television receiver. The TV sets for the new
arrivals would be issued as soon as they had been unloaded. All of the houses
had cement beds that were raised up off the floor with air mattresses on top. All
had cement chairs and tables with cushions on the chairs to make them
comfortable. They all had cement chests with wooden drawers. These weren't
the kinds of houses that people from Earth were accustomed to living in but
they were functional.
The Company cavern community now had twice the population of the
Government community and eight streets had been named. All of the houses
had addresses. The Company cavern was beginning to look like a small city.
What was lacking was a business community with stores and such, but that
would come. An area had been left clear in the center of town for stores that
would be opened by the private sector. It was interesting to note that once flush
toilets had been installed the stench had gone away. The atmosphere control
people had even started introducing a hint off fragrance into the air.
The material to equip and open the first private business was being
unloaded from Mars Supply One. The Company putting in the business was
taking a tremendous loss on the project, one that they knew they could never
be recovered but that didn't matter, it was the publicity they were after. They
had paid Mars Colony, Inc. one and a half billion dollars for the franchise rights
to do business on a one hundred by one hundred square foot lot of leased
space on a 20 year lease. For that amount The Company agreed to send six of
their employees on Mars Supply One and another six employees on Mars
Supply Two. Mars Colony, Inc. agreed to allow this companies employees all
rights and privileges that they would receive had they been Mars Colony, Inc.
employees, including the right to eat in the Mess Hall and the right to free
medical care.
On the evening that the ship had arrived with the new employees Tim
and Carla were home watching Rusty give the news on MARS-TV-Channel 2.
Rusty came on the air and he was really hyped. “Good evening to all of you
regular viewers and to you new arrivals also. As you know if you watch this
news program on a regular basis I am usually hard pressed to find enough
news in the community to fill my half hour slot but not tonight, I have three big
stories that just broke today.”
“First I would like to introduce you to our two new staff members here at
MARS-TV, Folks I want you to meet Clark and Mildred Gibson. They are a
married couple and will be working with our staff on our internet project. I know
the Mars internet doesn't amount to much with fewer than one hundred web
pages but hold on to your seats because here is what is coming in the coming
month or so, are you ready for this folks, Earth INTERNET. Here is how it will
work. There has been a relay antenna installed on the orbiter that circles Earth
and one installed on the one that circles Mars and one each ship, Mars Supply
One and Mars Supply Two, one of which is always en route from Earth to Mars.
Now since it could take anywhere from 4 minutes to 42 minutes for radio waves
to travel between the two planets, depending on where Mars in in its orbit the
delay on getting a command executed on the internet would be prohibitive, this
is what we have worked out . Besides these two folks here there will be two
more employees in Seattle. They will be searching the web and uploading all
information websites to Mars on a full time basis. These to people here in the
studio with me will be downloading what they send and putting those web
pages on Mars internet. The new software that they are using on the Earth end
will automatically pick updates to any website that they have already sent and
send all updates automatically. In addition to that we are making email
accounts that you establish here on Mars, Earth active that is if you send an
email to someone on Earth right now they should receive it within the hour and
you could have your response within two hours or less. We are putting all Mars
email addresses for every person and office on Mars on our Earth website and
we are offering a free lookup service that you can use to obtain email address
for any business, office or person on Earth that has an email address.” Rusty
then introduced and briefly interviewed the two new internet operatives.
“The next item concerns this young gentleman sitting here on my right.
Tell our viewers, Bob do you work for Mars Colony, Inc.?” “No I don't Rusty, nor
do I work for the United States Government. I just arrived here on the Colony
today and I am employed in the private sector.” “Why don't you tell our viewers
what brings you to Mars, Bob?” “I am here to supervise the construction of our
newest outlet. All of the equipment necessary to install our store is being
unloaded from Mars Supply One as we speak. Our location should be up and
operating shortly after Mars Supply Two arrives in about four months.” “I think
our viewers are dying to hear the name of The Company that you work for Bob.”
“Rather than just come right out and tell them I will give your viewers a hint, We
will be located in the business section of The Company cavern and they will be
able to easily find our location, all they will have to do is to look for the big red
arches.” “Do you mean that Burger Boy's is coming to Mars?” “Oh Rusty, you
guessed it and yes I mean that Burger Boy's will be operating on Mars by the
end of May.”
“We are not through yet folks, I now want you to meet Abner Jacobs who
is also a new arrival today and is an employee of the company. Just what kind
of work do you do for The Company Abner?” “There is not just me but I brought
along my wife Jennifer and another couple Dan and Sue Yang, we are what you
might call farmers but we are specialized in grow light indoor farming. All four of
us have masters degrees in Agriculture from University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
We specialize in growing plants indoors.” “We have everything that we need to
get started farming a one hundred sixty acre parcel of land on the ship,
Including a new product that we designed from samples of Mars soil to best
convert this soil to support crops, of course we also brought along adequate
grow lights, fertilizers and seeds and farm equipment to get a farm in operation
within a few months. From then on all of your vegetables will be fresh not
canned. We will produce as a byproduct of the vegetables enough food for a
sizable heard of goats. The goats will provide milk, other dairy products and
meat. Unfortunately Cattle can never be raised on Mars in any quantity, they
release too much methane into the atmosphere. Around our crops area we will
be planting a variety of fruit trees which will benefit from the grow lights on the
crops and eventually produce fresh fruit. I think you will find that our crops are
up to ten times as productive as outdoor crops on Earth that grow seasonally.
Our crops grow constantly and are extremely productive. We will also be taking
over care of your existing animals and will be augmenting them with a dozen
young pigs that we have brought from Earth ” Rusty then introduced the other
three farmers and interviewed them all together.
“I see that our time is up for tonight folks, I hope you have enjoyed
tonights news as much as I have enjoyed bringing it to you. Stay tuned now for
the nightly news with Keith Edwards Unfortunately this will still be 24 hour
delayed.” Sue Yang had responded to several of the questions that Rusty had
asked but Dan Just sat there without saying a word. Rusty asked Abner after
the show if he had done anything to offend Dan. “Naw,” said Abner “I have
been working with Dan Yang for seven years and I have never heard him say
much.”
January 16, 2108: Tim had a chance encounter with Bob the Hamburger
man and ask him how the deal went down that his company was given
permission to operate on Mars when the Government and The Company were
partners in the space ships and in the land they would be doing business on.
“This is what I have heard Tim and mind you that I am not a member of top
management of the company. Our company wanted to operate a franchise on
Mars for publicity purposes back on Earth and Our company is one of the
principals in Mars Colony, Inc. They offered two billion dollars to the
Government and The Company for the following: The Mars ships would move
all the equipment that we needed to Mars along with twelve employees. The
employees would have the same benefits as your company employees and
would be on a ten year contract just as, I assume you are. The Company would
keep us supplied with food stuffs and supplies that would arrive an all future
ships for the next ten years. The Company will construct our business building
on a one hundred by one hundred square foot lot in your business district. That
is about all I know other than there is not really any profit motive for Our
Company but it will provide us with commercials for years to come. Oh there is
one more thing, we will not be allowed to charge more for products here than
the average price that we charge on Earth.” “That about answered all my
questions, Oh yeah, when will the rest of your employees and your food stuffs
arrive?” “On the next ship which is due in some time in May of this year, Tim, so
I hope our building is ready by then.” “Are you kidding, with all the extra
construction guys we have here now they could have sent the employees on
this ship. We will have the whole thing wired, plumbed and ready to open in a
week. Thanks for the information and I hope you enjoy Mars.”
January 17, 2108: Abner Jacobs was busy inspecting the corn crop at
the temporary farm when a nondescript construction worker walked up to him
and handed him a small match box without saying a word. When Abner opened
the box he noticed that it was about half full of little white seeds the size of BB's.
Abner knew exactly what these were. Abner just smiled and put the box in his
pocket. The construction worker smiled back and walked away, neither of them
had said a word.
Abner walked out amongst the corn stalks and planted the seeds. He
would need to transplant them once they had germinated but for now they
needed to be in the soil.
January 17, 2108: When Tim showed up at work the next day Carter
assigned him to pick out a crew of thirty workers put someone competent in
charge and assign them to work for the farmers. Tim gathered the crews
together and said “before you start work I need thirty of you to help get the farm
set up. I think that prior farm experience might be helpful so if any of you have
some farm experience and would like to work for the farmers for a couple
weeks or for however long they need you please step over here by me.” About
twenty or so moved over behind Tim, “OK now any of you others who would like
to construct the farm house the farm lab and the animal pens please form a
group over there by the flag pole.” Another thirty moved over by the flag pole.
“Sorry folks but I only need ten of you so if you do not have plumbing or wiring
experience please return to the main group.” The thirty of them began
discussing the matter then all but ten moved back to the main group. “Now you
work group leaders take note of how many men you have lost and get together
with the other work group leaders and shuffle people around until you have the
number you need to go to work on what ever project you were working on last.”
That only took five or ten minutes and everyone was happy, Tim liked
that management style. He allowing people work where they considered
themselves to be most valuable to the project and where they would be
happiest. Maybe this management style wouldn't work with the class of people
that you have working construction jobs on Earth but it sure works out well here.
Tim addressed the two work groups and said “The new farm is going to be just
over the bridge at the back of The Company cavern. The area is a little over
three hundred twenty acres but will help keep the farm and animals all in one
place. It will also leave plenty of room for the house and barn and lab. I think
you might have to wall off the generator to keep the noise from disturbing the
farmers and the animals. Other than that the rest is up to the farmers. Put
everything where they want it and do everything they ask of you.” About then
Abner and Jennifer showed up and Tim gave them the layout. “We think the
farm should have this whole area from the river and lake to the back wall of the
cavern.” Tim told them. These forty construction people will do what ever you
ask of them to help in getting the farm set up and equipped. These thirty have
some farm experience, the other ten will construct your buildings. At that point
he introduced Abner and Jennifer to the workers and then said “Go to work.”
Tim stepped back and saw Abner begin talking with the volunteers explaining
everything that he would need to have done. One of the construction people
asked Abner to come with him. He would show them where to find the tools
and equipment they would need in the supply yard. “All of it may not be
unloaded yet but we can take what there is and start moving it over to the
farm..” Before Tim left he told Abner that if he needed anything or if he needed
more help with a big job to let him know and he would send more workers. It
now seemed to Tim that workers were the only thing on Mars that was not in
short supply.
There were other things that had been provided for the farm, the most
important of which was six large box hives of honey bees to pollinate the plants
and to provide the colonists with fresh honey. There was also an assortment of
caterpillars and even four small mulberry trees that were covered with silkworm
cocoons when the ship left Earth but by the time they arrived on Mars the
cocoons had hatched into silkworm larva.
Shortly after Tim left Abner was unpacking packets of seeds when he
came across a package of seeds labeled Ivy. Abner didn't even know there was
such a thing as Ivy seeds. He tore open the envelope and found, not seeds but
tiny dried roots. Not knowing what else to do with them and failing to appreciate
their benefit he scooped up a shovel full of fertile soil and planted them in the
corner where the generator wall met the cavern wall. By the next day Abner
had forgotten all about the Ivy. Seeing the fertile soil and noting the
depressions Abner had made with his finger when he planted the roots Sue
Yang shrugged, went over to the lake, scooped up some a bucket of water and
poured a little on the spot, figuring Abner was trying something and had been
distracted before he had watered it. The next day Sue Yang poured a little
more water out of the bucket onto the soil. By the time the bucket was empty
there were little green shoots sticking out of the ground. The odd thing about
this was that there were no grow lights shining directly on the area where the
shoots were coming up just the ordinary cave lighting and where these plants
were coming up there wasn't even much of that. Sue Yang then went and got
Abner and showed him the shoots. “These shoots are growing without the
benefit of grow lights, Abner, whatever you were trying here worked,
congratulations.” Abner had to pause and think just what he had planted there,
then he remembered the Ivy. “Oh, yeah, Sue, I thought I would try some Ivy,
there was a package of dried Ivy cuttings in among the vegetable seeds that I
had ordered rather than to just throw them away I stuck them in the ground over
here then I got busy and forgot all about them.” “Do you realize the significance
of this Abner? We have come up with a plant that we can grow anywhere in the
caverns. True you can't eat Ivy but you can sure breath it's byproduct. Ivy
spreads like crab grass so if we were to plant it everywhere it would grow
everywhere. It is nice to look at and the plants will enrich our atmosphere
immensely once they take hold.” Abner called Tim and asked him to drop by the
farm next time he was in the area.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 9

2009-04-02T21:44:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – Cupid at work JANUARY 2108
So many people that had come to Mars as singles were now couples.
Archy had started performing weddings although there was no place on Mars to
obtain a marriage license and Archy was not an ordained clergyman. What the
hell that is the closest they could get, so after the ceremony they just started
living in sin, so what.

Walter and Thelma took all this into consideration and decided to set up
a court house to start issuing marriage licenses. Little did they realize at the
time that within the year they would be issuing birth certificate's also. A walled
enclosure was erected and a sign hung over the entrance that read Court
House. One of the women on Walter's staff that did computer input was
assigned to move her desk over to the court house and use the computer to
print marriage licenses which Walter signed. As it turned out about half of those
that Archy had married didn't even want a marriage license. This was the hot
topic on talk radio for over a week.
That evening Carla said to Tim, “I have been listening to talk radio, quite
a lot, lately,” then she remarked to Tim, “How can folks get so excited over the
most inane things on that talk radio station?” Tim thought for a moment then
responded, “I think that all of us have just so much attention span to use up
every day, here in these caverns there is really very little of any importance to
spend our attention on. It is not possible for talk radio to not talk about
anything, so they just pick the most interesting of all the uninteresting things
they have to choose from and discuss that. It's like that movie we saw the other
night where the guy was in solitary confinement and had nothing to spend his
attention allotment on, then he spotted a roach in the corner of his cell and
spent all his time watching the antics of that stupid roach, he would watch it for
hours on end, remember”. “Well, no matter, I will probably keep listening to talk
radio, and even calling in on occasion.”
Back to the matter of alcohol. Since The Company furnished them
canned vegetables and since The Company didn't furnish liquor it only made
sense to use what growing capacity that they had to produce their own alcohol.
Rusty at MARS-TV held a discussion on the news and invited listeners to call in
whether they wanted to sacrifice their fresh veggies for booze or not. The call
ins were about fifteen to one in favor of booze. So as each veggie crop was
harvested the crop was replaced with corn. A couple guys who worked
construction were from a part of the country where it was still common to set up
a still and produce their own liquor. You could even get a permit to do that if it
was for your own consumption. Both of these gentlemen claimed to be experts
so they were unofficially appointed to head up that project. They scoured the
facility in search of copper tubing and the other materials they would need.
They came up with everything they needed and constructed the first still on
Mars. There would still be a lack of casks for aging but that would not be much
of a problem. Nobody would want to wait for it to age anyway. The early
batches would lacked that nice brown color that one associates with good
whiskey but it would serve to make Saturday nights a lot more fun.
One Sunday morning early in 2108 Tim and Carla were out for a walk
when they came across Archy holding services for a dozen or so faithful. The
service was about over so Tim and Carla listened to the conclusion of Archie's
sermon. They didn't know much about religion but Archy sure seemed to know
what he was talking about. He sounded very professional. When the service
ended Archie approached them and asked Tim if he would help build a
community church. “Sure Archy but we would have to clear it with Walter and
Thelma. The next time he spoke with Thelma he brought the subject of a
church up for discussion. “Oh, you know how the Government and The
Company are about spending any money for the benefit of any particular
religious group so we would have to call it a community chapel and claim that
we needed it for weddings and funerals. I am not aware of any funerals coming
up but I know of more than a dozen weddings that are being planned.” Tim said,
I could request Rusty to ask for volunteers on the nightly news to have those
interested volunteer their time next Sunday to help build the Church, er a I
mean Community Chapel.” “Not necessary said Thelma, if The Company and
the Government approve the Chapel we can build it on company time with
company materials and even order a few items like pews sent up from Earth.
By the way, Tim do we have a pastor?” “Well sort of, one of our construction
workers is a lay minister. I have heard one of his sermons and he sounds very
professional. I don't know what religion he represents but maybe he could be
persuaded to conduct his services interdenominational.”
Thelma got her permission for the chapel all right but the Government
representative that she talked to in Washington said Oh, my god, we forgot all
about that. With the population that you have now you would be entitled to
three chapels and three chaplains. Watch the next ship Thelma you may be
getting a priest a minister and a rabbi.” Archy was not too pleased when he
heard all this but just shrugged and said maybe the protestant minister will let
me preach one day a week, that would be fine with me.”
The company had been speaking with Carter and Walter and Thelma
and were assured that the colony was prepared to receive a new batch of
workers. “We are a lot better prepared now to receive three hundred new
workers than we were when you sent the last batch she said. Besides the
assigned work is pretty well caught up with now and Carter wants to start
sealing the big cavern as soon as possible after breakthrough. Maybe you
could send three hundred new workers on each ship until further notice. When
we start on the big cavern we will need all the help we can get, it is going to be
a big job to seal and pressurize that baby.” A few minutes later another
message was received from the Company “It's a good thing that you said that
Thelma because on the ship that is due to arrive in January there are three
hundred more employees. Most of them will be construction workers but there
will also be some surprises for you.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 8

2009-04-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – New Years 2108
The workers in the colony had planned a gala celebration for new years
eve. It was new years on Earth but who knows what it is on Mars. That didn't
matter these folks had always celebrated new years and this would be no
exception. When Tim arrived at the colony there was a group of Government
employees that had organized a little Country and Western band and were
entertaining from time to time when people gathered. They even played on
Saturday evenings at the mess hall dining room and many couples and singles
went over there to dance.

Some of the Government employees, like Paul had done had figured out
ways to get some booze shipped in. It was against company and Government
policy which tended to make it very expensive, but the ones who had been
there for a while had their ways. A few folks always had a few drinks on
Saturday evening at the mess hall.
Not to be out done several of the people who had arrived with Tim had
also formed musical groups. There was one that played pop music and another
what was also country and western. Each of these groups had made at least
one appearance at the Saturday night dance and all three bands had their own
shows on a different night of the week on MARS-TV.
All three bands played in the two mess hall dining rooms, rotating from
one to the other. Almost everyone celebrated at one place or the other. They
enjoyed the music, danced and generally had a good time they even counted
down the last ten seconds of 2107 and everyone was kissing everyone else and
someone shouted “This is January 1, 2108.”
___________ JANUARY 2108 _____________
Still there was something missing, alcohol. Oh for sure there were a few
that did not drink, and would not drink but very few. The Company had not
hired anybody that was a recovering alcoholic or had ever had a drunk driving
arrest. So many times on Mars the demography of the population raised it's
ugly head. The strangest thing about living on this planet was the fact that there
was no old people and no children and no babies and no one who did not speak
good English. That had never been driven home more than at the new years
celebration. Even though there were no alcoholics among the population more
than ninety percent of them missed not having a drink on New Years eve. They
had their ten second count down to usher in the new year, but some how it
didn't seem the same.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 7

2009-03-31T21:39:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – Their first Christmas on Mars
Their first Christmas on Mars was something to behold. Of course they
had no trees, even artificial trees other than one artificial tree that had been
sent up by the Government two or three years back and was looking kind of dog
eared. They didn't have any factory made decorations except for those sent by
the Government to decorate that one lonely tree. Everyone fashioned every day
items and made their own decorations. One couple who's hobby was wood
carving drew out enough wood from supply to carve a nativity scene. Archy
organized a choir of carolers. For the week leading up to Christmas they
roamed the facility for about an hour every evening singing carols
Gift giving was the hardest part but everyone came up with some sort of
original idea as to what to give and to who and how to wrap it. A lot of unique
ideas went into that part of the holiday. Carla baked Tim a batch of chocolate
chip cookies in the kitchen and wrapped them in foil. Tim was stuck, he couldn't
think of a thing to give Carla, then he remembered the rocks he had picked out
of the mud when he was drilling the well. He picked out a middle sized rock
that he thought was the prettiest, it was about the size of a Roma tomato. He
wrapped it in a blue paper towel and tied a red string around the top.
They went to a special Christmas dinner on the evening of the 24th.
Carla had arranged to have the evening off. After dinner they returned to their
little house and exchanged gifts. Tim was especially pleased with the cookies
and felt a little bad that he hadn't gotten something better for Carla than that
ugly rock.

When Carla opened her gift her eye's opened wide and her mouth
dropped open and she gasp two or three times to get her breath. “Tim, where
on Earth did you find this? I didn't find it on Earth Carla I found it on Mars.” “Well
unless I am terribly mistaken this is about a three ounce uncut diamond. It
could be worth almost a million dollars on Earth. Then Tim's mouth dropped
open and they just sat there for a minute looking into each other's mouths.
“Were there any more of these where you found this one,” Carla stammered.
“Yeah, I have a whole bag of them, altogether maybe five or six pounds. He
retrieved the bag from amongst his belongings and emptied the contents onto
the table. Carla just sat there and kept saying “Oh, my God.” “Oh, my God.”
over and over. If these are diamonds and I am almost sure that they are do you
have any idea of their value? Maybe millions and possibly even over a billion
dollars, once they are cut and polished, that's billion with a B.”
If that is the case Carla they won't be worth anything if their existence
becomes common knowledge. Carla said, “wait a minute, I met a man here on
Mars, one of the scientists who's father is a jeweler and diamond cutter. My
acquaintance, Paul Silverman, said that his father was teaching him the trade
but Paul said he wasn't interested and went to MIT where got a PHD in Math
instead. Paul, or rather Dr. Silverman is a Government employee. I think we
better get him on this anyway and see what he has to say. Tim chuckled and
said “ if Silverman means what I think it means he won't have anything to do on
Christmas Eve anyway and it is still early, so I can't resist I am going to give him
a call.”
“Hello, this is Paul.” “You don't know me Dr. but you may know my wife
Carla, Erkin that works in the kitchen, my name is Tim Erkin I am her husband
and I work in construction. The reason that I am calling is that I found some
unusual rocks the other day and Carla thinks you ought to see them and maybe
identify them for us.” “Yes Tim I know who your wife is, lovely girl, you are a very
lucky man. Certainly I will be happy to look at your find and identify the stones
for you, please bring them by anytime.” “How about now Dr. are you busy.”
“Well I am watching a movie on TV but I guess I could put that on record when
you get here. I live at 850 Broadway and I'll be expecting you and your lovely
wife. Tim put the stones back in the bag and they were outside Dr. Silverman's
entrance iwithin five minutes. Come on in, folks and show me what you have
found that you are so curious about. After shaking hands, Tim reached into his
bag and pulled out a small stone at random and handed it to Dr. Silverman.”
The good doctor's mouth dropped open and all he could say was “Oh, my God.”
“Oh, my God.” over and over. “I had the same reaction Paul but I wasn't sure,
you have just confirmed it.” “Could I see the other stones please Tim?” At which
point Tim emptied the contents of the bag on Paul's table. Paul took his
eyepiece from a desk drawer, sat down and began to examine Tims find piece
by piece.
He selected one with a sharp edge then picked a cut gem that he had
been working with. Paul explained that making jewelry was his hobby. “ I make
up items here and then send them back on the next ship to my family who sell
them for me and deposit the money in my account. I don't know whether you
knew it or not but it is free to send things back to Earth as the ships are all
returning empty anyway.” Paul then took the stone and made a sharp cut into
the faceted stone that he had picked up off his workbench. It is seven in
hardness he said. He then held the stone up to the light and studied it as far as
I can tell this is a perfect stone., he announced. Paul then put it on a scales,
this particular stone weighs in at 4.2 oz or roughly 441 carats. Paul then put the
whole collection on his scales, the combined weight was 12.5 pounds, or about
21,000 carats. You would loose about half in cutting. If you just cut them into
one carat stones you would realize about 10,500 one carat perfect diamonds
currently selling at $2,700.00. These would retail at about 28.5 million dollars.
If I cut and polish and market them for you my family and I would take 75% of
the retail value. Understand that my family does not deal in retail. We are
wholesalers only. But doing it that way you would still have over 7.5 million for
your share. We are going to do better than that though I am going to sell some
of these as two carat stones, some as three carat some even as larger stones.
My family frequently deals in very large stones which are worth far more per
carat. Your share could easily come out to between 15 and 20 million dollars.
“Come, you two sit over here and lets talk. Would you care for a
brandy?, I have it sent up from Earth and I have never offered anyone else a
drink of it before because it is too expensive, but this, this is an occasion that
deserves a whole bottle of brandy. “Sure Paul, I haven't had a drink in a long
time and I think you might be right, this is worth it.”
Once they had their drinks Paul started. “Here is our problem, the way I
see it. If we are not very careful we could ruin the diamond market on Earth if
word of these stones got out. Diamonds themselves have only their industrial
value which would make these stones here worth only a few thousand dollars.
What diamonds do have above and beyond their intrinsic value is their
perceived value. If the market collectively perceives that are worth fifty million
dollars then we can sell them for twenty five million. If the market were to
perceive that they were worthless as jewels then they would have only their
industrial value.
I have the equipment here on Mars to cleave them cut them and mount
them. I have been on Mars for only two years now and I have eight years left
on my contract before I can return to Earth. We must never let anyone know
that these stones are from Mars or like I said the Diamond market on Earth
could collapse. It is only the law of supply and demand that supports the
market. Even the big diamond mines in Africa and elsewhere withhold stones
from the market in order to maximize their price. I could cut a one hundred
million dollar diamond out of that grapefruit you have there but what would I do
with it. No such diamond presently exists and someone would catch on once
my Martian background came to light. Here is what I propose. I should cut
most of these stones right here into large but imperfect facets. Then mount
them in unattractive silver jewelry and send them to my family on Earth. I will
instruct them to open new Swiss bank accounts one for you and Carla and one
for me. They will then rework the stones and melt down the settings which they
will send back to me as bulk silver. They are dealers so they will have little
difficulty in marketing the stones, they will keep half the proceeds from the sale
of the stones and deposit one half of the other half of the money into each of
our accounts. You can trust them they are my family and my family has been
making their living in this trade for over two hundred years, they and I are
ascetic Jews . Because of the sensitive nature of our family business no one of
us have ever cheated another of us not even once in that whole two hundred
years. We have had to set our moral values that high because we have had to
prosper under hostile governments in order to survive. If there was ever a
business where a man's word was his bond, it is this business. Even though I
am a PHD in math which has irked my family to no end I still can't get this stupid
business out of my life, I was born and raised in it and even came to Mars to get
away from the stigma that goes along with this business and my religious
lifestyle but here I sit in my spare time working with these damned stones.”
Tim took Carla by the hand and pulled her toward the door. “Excuse us a
minute Paul we have to talk.” Outside, Tim told Carla, I know about these
people, they are very clannish, and what he says about trust is absolutely
correct, hell these people even survived and did business during the Holocaust,
in Nazi Germany when all the other Jews were sent off to the concentration
camps. I say we go for it. I can always get more stones from where I got these
so we have almost nothing invested.” “Sure Tim it sounds like a win, win
situation, let's go for it.”
In the days that passed they maintained only a nodding relationship with
Paul. On one occasion several weeks later he told Carla “Come by the house
this evening there is something I want to show you. That evening Tim and
Carla went over to see Paul after dark. Once inside Paul poured out the
contents of a velvet pouch onto a velvet pad. There were almost 20 cut
diamonds. They looked large but irregular. “Look, these are all the product of
one of your smaller stones. Since I am being particular when I cleave them but
intentionally clumsy when I cut and polish them I am able to turn one of these
out at approximately one per day. These are all six to eight carrot perfect
diamonds. By the time my relatives on Earth finish with them we should each
receive approximately five hundred thousand dollars. I just have time before
the next ship to Earth leaves to make some ugly cheap jewelry to mount them
in to make them look like dime store stuff to the untrained eye. I will be sending
a shipment like this out on every ship for the next several years. I will give you
your numbered account information as soon as I have it. Aside from that you
are just going to have to trust me and my family until you return to Earth.
The next evening Tim and Carla were discussing their situation.
“According to what Paul has told us we are going to have more money in
Switzerland when we get back than we have in the United States, Carla.” “I am
still a little uneasy about that Tim, that's an awful lot of money and those
relatives of Paul's will have our account number.” Not this next ship but within
the year I want to post a letter to our Trustee and have him make periodic
withdrawals from our Swiss account and deposit the money in our trust account
at the bank. Then I want to order him to begin a regular stock purchase
program of acquiring shares in Mars Colony, Inc.” “I can see having him deposit
the money in our trust account but why would you want shares in Mars Colony,
Inc. They have never turned a profit and they never will.” I made some inquiries
about The Company before we left. It seems that 20 of the 25 richest
individuals and corporations on Earth are behind it. They each put up one
Billion in seed money to get The Company going. So far they have gone
through that 20 billion and the investors have already kicked in another billion
each and you are right The Company has yet to make a dime. Here is what I
think, The Company has arranged to take title to Most of Mars. I suspect, they
already have title to everything that is here except the Government cavern, and
they are just using the taxpayers and the Government to help them with
development expenses. Carla within a year we are going to be taming a cavern
as large as a U.S. State and The Company will own it all. I have also
considered the possibility that The Company already knows about the diamonds
but they don't want to destroy the diamond market either. It's a fluke for me to
have stumbled on to the ones I found, we were drilling with Water pressure
because our drill bit wasn't working and the diamonds that I picked up were
forced up with the mud. I didn't even know what they were but they fascinated
me and I figured they were worth picking up. We used that slag to finish up
around the hole and to mount the generator on, I would imagine there is as
many diamonds that I did not pick up as there were those that I did pick up.
Eventually we will be closing that generator down and then I will have a chance
to go through the rest of that mud. In the meantime those diamonds are safe
and secure and I wouldn't want to do anything that looked suspicious, we can
afford to let them lay there for two or three years. I will go over and poke
around near the surface in a couple months like I am checking up on how our
installation is holding up. If any are near the surface I of course will pick them
up.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 6

2009-03-30T21:35:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER – The Food on Mars
October 5, 2107: Besides the ever present mushrooms the colony also
raised chickens, rabbits, turkeys, ducks and geese. There was a small heard of
goats but there wasn't enough for them to graze on. They produced a little milk
but Tim never knew what happened to that. There certainly wouldn't have been
enough to go around. Once in a while they would butcher a kid but Tim never
found out who got the meat, he suspected the kitchen staff as there would not
be enough fresh meat to go around either. They were getting enough frozen
meat from Earth to flavor their food but they seldom if ever had steak or roast
beef or any plain meat dish even hamburger. There always seemed to be
bacon sausage and once in a while, ham.

Tim looked up the two guys from the Scientific crew that were working
with the small experimental garden and ask them what all it would take to grow
enough vegetables to meet the needs of the community of now over six
hundred people. After some discussion the finally decided that they would need
about 160 acres of fertile irrigated land with adequate grow lights to raise
everything they needed.
In the early part of the twenty first century in the United States the rule of
thumb had been that it took one acre per person to provide food to the country.
Around 2025 The United States changed from a net food exporting country to a
net food importing country. In response to this development farmers became a
lot more efficient at food production. By 2107 the ratio had been reduced to half
an acre per person. Thanks largely to the more extensive use of hot houses for
growing vegetables. On Earth the growing season for most foods was still
seasonal. On Mars there were no seasons and all food could be grown year
around and around the clock. That meant that on Mars the ratio would be about
one quarter acre per person. That included the room that the animals required.
Tim had in mind that the entire area on the Company cavern behind the lake
and stream, which was approximately 320 acres would be the ideal place for
the farm. That would provide all the land that they would need to easily feed a
population of one thousand people. By the time that the population exceeded
one thousand they would have more land because more caverns would be
opened. Tim got a list of the fertilizers that would be needed to bring the
Martian soil to life and keep it producing for one year. They then worked out
just how many grow lights they would need to run a hothouse of that size. The
results were staggering but undaunted Tim spent his next day off working out a
requisition for the needed material and an estimate of how much was spent by
The Company and the Government to provide the community with canned
produce that nobody enjoyed eating. In his equation he allowed for six full time
gardeners. The conclusion reached is that it would be cheaper to raise their
own vegetables on Mars, a lot cheaper.
The next morning before work he gave a copy of his findings to Carter
and another copy to Thelma. The report was well received on Mars . Walter
and Thelma submitted an edited copy of Tim's report to The Company and the
government. Everyone agreed that was what should be done but they knew the
schedule and knew it would be about seven months before the requisitioned
items would arrive. They would just have to continue eating canned vegetables
until then.
October 5, 2107: Message received from Company on Earth. We have
planned a farm on Mars all along. Knowing you would have adequate electricity
soon we have already shipped your farm supplies, grow lights, equipment and
four farmers. They are now en route on Mars Supply Two and should arrive
around January 15, 2108.
October 10, 2107: Not completely satisfied with that Tim and Carter
gathered up all the grow lights they had and all the other lights that could be
converted to grow lights. They then cleaned out the goat pen, the rabbit pens
and the chicken pens and were able to set up a two acre test farm in The
Company cavern. Some of the people with gardening experience volunteered
and two of them were assigned as full time farmers.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 5

2009-03-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER - Tim drills a well
September 30, 2107: That morning, Tim selected his crew and they went
to work. They scavenged part of what they needed and jury rigged the rest.
They did have some shaft and a drill head, they converted the u-joint and motor
from an old fork lift to be mounted on the platform and turn the shaft. By the
end of the day they had tested all the equipment and had drilled a hole twelve
inches in diameter and about three feet deep.

October 1, 2107: (from Tim's notes}”This morning we started drilling in
earnest but it is not going very well, the drill head keeps binding up and
something we are trying to drill through keeps dulling our drill head so that it has
to be resharpened every few feet. We have obtained a high pressure pump
and a fire hose. We keep washing the clay from the drill bit with the nozzle of
the hose before it can be resharpened. I had an idea, we removed the drill bit
and ran the fire hose through the shaft and gave it full power. The soft clay
began to liquefy and bubble to the top. I noticed small rocks ranging is size
from the size of walnuts to the size of apples being forced up to the surface. I
figured we must be drilling through an ancient lava flow. I picked up the rocks
that were being forced to the surface and threw them into a wheelbarrow. We
were down almost 50 feet and the thermometer indicated that the temperature
was up to two hundred fifty degrees. We needed around one thousand degrees
to obtain sufficient conversion steam to turn a generator the size of the one we
intended to mount and make electricity. That afternoon when the crew went off
duty my curiosity was getting the best of me so I went over to the lake and
rinsed off the rocks I had collected. They looked kind of pretty so I put them in a
canvas bag and took them to my quarters. I didn't know at the time what I
would eventually use them for but on Mars you can find a use for everything.
Maybe I could mount them in concrete and use them to decorate around our
front door someday.”
The talk radio announcer who called himself Harry Martian broke in to
the music stations to announce that drilling had started for the hole that would
enable the new geothermal generator. Tim had his ear piece radio on the talk
station and was amused at the different spins that the listeners put on the
project. A couple callers feared that what they were doing could cause a
volcano to erupt in The Company cavern. Actually, thought Tim, that would be a
possibility. Tim found himself thinking about that possibility the rest of the day.
After work Tim looked up the scientist he had met named George Schultz, and
asked him what he thought. George said, “you don't need to worry at all about
your drilling effort causing a volcano,” “How can you be so sure?” “I am not at all
sure that it won't, Tim but if it does you won't have long to worry about it.”
Somehow Tim did not feel at all reassured.
October 2, 2107: ( from Tims notes) We reached a depth of 60 feet and
were getting a temperature of over six hundred degrees. We continued on
slowly until at just under one hundred feet we were getting the one thousand
degrees that we needed. We withdrew the hose and sank a blade that I had
found in the supply yard that enlarged the hole to a three foot circumference.
We then started inserting a double 6” pipe joined at the bottom by a U shaped
fitting.
When the U at the bottom connecting our two pipes reached five
hundred degrees we began to pump the cold water from the lake into one of the
pipes. Hot water began to spew from the other so we connected a hose to the
end where the hot watter was bubbling out and fed that into the lake. We were
taking our cold water from the headwater of the stream just below the falls. By
this time another crew had mounted the generator on cement blocks so we
connected the out hose to the generator and ran the exhaust water hose from
the generator into the lake. We then powered up the generator and it began to
pump water into the lake. We then eased the dual pipes deeper into the hole.
Shortly we had raw steam flowing into the generator and the fan began to turn.
While we were busy with these tasks the electrical crew had wired the
generator into the electrical system and the power began to flow. Once the
pipes were at the bottom of the hole we aliened the pipe from the generator to
line up with the output pipe and cut the motor forcing the cold water into the
pipe. We didn't have long to make the connection before the U at the bottom of
the pipe would melt. When the live steam diminished enough that we could
handle it in a Mars suit one of the men connected the live steam pipe directly to
the generator and we restarted the pump sending the cold river water into the
ground. On most steam generation systems the water is cooled and recycled
but in this case we needed to heat the water in the stream and the lake so we
are constantly drawing cold water from the headwater just below the falls and
depositing it back into the stream about thirty feet down river. This should be
adequate to heat the stream and lake to a temperature that can accommodate
trout and even catfish. We were generating close to thirty megawatts of power
and it was up to the electricians to route it throughout the facility and put it to
use. I don't know how much thirty megawatts is but they tell me it will be all the
electricity we will need until for some time to come.
That evening everything in the caverns seemed to burn a little brighter.
We left the old diesel generator hooked up as a backup system but we had quit
running it.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 4

2009-03-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER - The early days
Carla had to report to the kitchen at 0430 to fix breakfast but Tim had six
days off to build his house and get things set up for temporary living. “Only one
blanket and we don't know how cold it gets here at night Carla said, I wonder if
we are going to get cold.?” “There is a question that I can answer, said Tim and
the answer is no. These caverns are maintained at a constant 73 degrees, year
round, you will never be cold and you will never need a coat. Carla took her
bag of toiletries and headed for the public rest room. The place was busy but
she had little trouble in finding an open shower stall. Surprise it worked just like
the showers on the ship. After her shower she found an open wash basin with
a large mirror where she finished her toiletries and returned to her camp. She
returned about the same time as Tim. They donned their night clothes, inflated
their mattress by pulling the well marked tabs and crawled in to bed to spend
their first night on Mars. March 28, had been a very busy day, indeed. The
lights in the Cavern went out promptly at 2200 everything quieted down and
they both fell asleep almost immediately.

September 29, 2107: Carla's phone rang at 0400, Carla located her
phone and fumbled with her watch before she located the button. She notice
that the button was back lit and blinking so she pushed it. Hi Carla, this is
Hilda, I am just calling the members of my crew that are assigned to prepare
breakfast. I didn't know whether you had an alarm clock working yet or not.
You need to report to the kitchen in 30, minutes to help prepare breakfast.” “Oh,
thanks Hilda, and you were right, I didn't have my alarm clock working yet. I'll
see you then.” She then pushed the button that had started blinking again when
Hilda hung up. And crawled out of bed. Tim just groaned. After a visit to the
public wash room Carla got dressed and went over to the kitchen.
Hilda was there there to set her to her tasks. By 0600 people began to
pour in and breakfast came off smoothly. This morning the kitchen was serving
oatmeal and toast with canned fruit. Tim received a call just as he was finishing
his breakfast at 0645, asking him to report to The Company cavern at 0700 or
as soon thereafter as he could make it. Carla couldn't help but notice how
many people had their ear pieces in and were moving to one kind of music or
another. After a while you will even learn how to tell which station they are
listening to by just watching them,” one of the other kitchen workers said, “If
they are really grooving then that means they are listening to pop. If they have
a serene expression on their face they are listening to the elevator music, If
they look sad it's C&W, and if they look as though they are listening to a
conversation then they got the talk station on. I make a game of trying to
guess. Most often they are listening to talk radio, that's the most popular.”
Tim arrived at work at 0650 and struck up a conversation with Jack
Overmeye. “Did you notice that it is warmer in this cavern than in the
Government cavern, Tim?” “Nope, I haven't been in here enough to pay it much
attention.” “I spent the night in here last night and had to throw my blanket off,
when I got up to go to the bathroom I noticed that it felt chilly in the other
cavern, so this morning I went around feeling all the walls and in the far back
and off to your right there is a hot spot that you can't hold your hand of for long.
I then checked the floor beneath the hot spot and found that to be even hotter.”
Just then Carter Fredrick, facilities superintendent joined them and Jack
related what he had observed to him.”Show me that spot Jack.” The three men
skipped to the back of the cavern and Jack said, “OK, now put your hand right
there.” Sure enough Carter didn't leave it there for long. “Now check the floor
right here below the hot spot,” Carter put his hand on the floor for an instant
then removed quickly and began to check it for damage. “All right after I get all
the crews busy I will consult the scientists about drilling right here.” The three of
them skipped back to where the other construction workers were gathered.
Carter had work assignments based on the crew lists from the ship. “I am
assigning you people to the same crews that you had on the ship for now but
feel free to change crews if you see another crew doing a job that you have
some expertise in. The tools and supplies that you will need can be picked up
in the supply area of the Government cavern. At that point he handed out a list
of assignments for each group. “My name is Carter, I have been heading up
the one crew that has been working here for over two years. I have assigned
one of my people to each crew because they know how to find stuff, they are
not the crew foremen but each of them has a lot of good information that he can
share. Since each of the crews have been together for the last couple months I
imagine that you have a pretty good idea of who you would like to see as your
crew chief, so I would like for each crew to informally pick one of your own and
give me the name so I can make a note of who to call on if I need to contact
your crew. We will figure out a better system later on.”
In addition to working on your crew we have a work order board in the
Government cavern, it is posted in front of the supply room. You should check
the board every morning or evening when you are off duty. If there is a work
request posted that you believe that you have the necessary skills for you
should remove the thumb tack and remove the request. Notify your crew chief
before starting work for the day that you have the work request then handle that
first before catching up with your crew. In that way all requests for repairs or
improvements needed by the members of the community will be handled
promptly. If there are still any requests on the board when I come over to hold
muster I will bring them in with me and assign the job to a volunteer.
With that the crews all had a little meeting to pick their crew chief. Crew
six actually held an election and elected the guy who had been on Mars before
they arrived yesterday. Each of the crew chief's came up to Carter and gave
him the name of the person selected. Then they all went right to work,
assembling the tools and supplies they would need.
The people on Crew eleven assembled and all eyes turned to Tim. One
of the men said “You are the one with the engineering degree Tim, I can say
that you helped me a lot during training, explaining the technical stuff behind
what the instructor had told us. I nominate Tim Erkin to be our foreman, any
seconds,” everybody seconded the motion so they didn't need an election, Tim
was elected. Tim went over to where Carter was standing and told him “Crew
eleven selected Tim Erkin.” Carter just circled the name on the list and said
“Thanks.”
Some crews were working topside making cement blocks, some were
picking up blocks that were already cured and started building public rooms like
the dining room, kitchen and public bath rooms. Some went to work laying in a
water line, to the kitchen, while another crew installed the reverse osmosis
system, where the water from the river entered the cavern above the falls.
Some were running temporary wiring in from the diesel generator that was
situated in the Government cavern. The remaining crews had equally important
tasks. As the morning progressed some of the workers traded places with
workers on the other crews based on previous experience, knowledge, skills
and abilities. I have a lot of experience in installing electrical wiring and would
be of more benefit to the job if one of you guys has plumbing experience and
wants to change jobs. Sure enough some person would say yeah I have some
plumbing experience but I don't know squat about electricity, so they would
switch jobs. Some of the crews had surplus men because the job was being
done by just three or four people that seemed to know what they were doing so
the surplus workers would find a crew that needed more help and go to work
there.
Carter watched the progress in awe. The field kitchen was planned to be
adjacent to the Government kitchen but the men themselves had elected to set
it up in The Company cavern and had it all set up in a couple hours. One of the
crews had located the new walk in refrigerator which was packaged on five
separate pallets, got hold of a forklift and started assembling it with the door
opening into the kitchen. After the lunch break they quickly had it all
assembled, wired in and running. Thelma entered and watched along with
Carter as the crews transformed the Company cavern before their eyes.
Tim saw Carter take Thelma back and show her the hot spot. It was
located at the back wall, near the right side of the Company cavern as you
entered from the Government cavern. The Company cavern was 1.2 miles from
front to back, it was a little over half a mile wide at its widest point but tapered to
only about a quarter mile wide where the tunnel entered. It was about three
eights of a mile wide at the back wall. Of course none of the walls ran in a
straight line. The hot spot was just over a mile from the tunnel entrance. The
floor space in The Company cavern was equal to about 930 football fields at
floor level.
Thelma and Carter examined the hot spot then left the cavern, returning
a few minutes with a couple of the Government scientific types. They pounded,
prodded, drilled out a few core samples from the wall and the floor. They left
the cavern, only to return a short while later with some other scientists. They
talked some more, made some notes. A short time later woman with a camera
came in and took several pictures of the blank wall and the floor. Then they all
left. About 1130 Carter returned and told Jack that he had done every one a big
favor. It is fewer than one hundred feet down at that spot on the floor to where
it is over one thousand degrees Fahrenheit. It would be the ideal spot to mount
the geothermal generator. That spot could even be blocked off from the rest of
the cavern. There is a good water supply in the creek here so it looks like we
have found the spot for our generator, one of them anyhow.
The workers broke for lunch 1200 but most of them were back working
even before 1300. “I have never seen people this industrious but I guess this is
what you get when you only take the cream of the crop.” Carter remarked to
Thelma. “I'll have to admit that I had my doubts yesterday when I discovered
that about half the construction workers were women but I am proud to say that
they seem to be doing just fine.” The crews knocked off for the day at 16:30 to
get cleaned up for dinner. A few of them still stuck around to finish what they
were working on.
That evening The Company cavern was a lot better lit and four hundred
new houses had one level of blocks laid. The crews had not made the walls
higher because they had run out of blocks. The block makers had more than
one thousand new blocks curing on the surface, near the elevator. A few of the
workers had already had a chance to try out their Mars suits on the surface.
Tim walked by the supply area and was amazed to see the amount of material
that had already been unloaded from Mars Supply Two. There was an acre or
more of Supplies now available. Eventually the supplies brought in by the ship
would cover more than five acres. All of the pallets and crates had been
carefully dismantled a and the lumber stacked just like any other supplies.
Once all the wood had been stacked the new people would each receive their
fair share for their personal use.
Tim went to the public bathroom and cleaned up. His crew had been
laying cement blocks and required little advise or supervision from him. He had
spent the day working as a gopher for the other crews because he knew better
than most, how to find things at supply. By the end of the day he had a pretty
good idea where to locate tools and materials that the various installers needed.
Carter spotted Tim in the chow line, and came up to him. “Tim I see that you
have had some well drilling experience. How would you like to be on our drilling
team starting tomorrow morning?” Walter and Thelma Potts were right behind
Tim in line and they invited Carter to step in front. Nobody minded much when
a friend joined someone in line because the line moved pretty fast anyway. “I
would love to do some drilling Carter, I have spent a lot more time drilling than
in construction and that is what my degree is in.” “Good then tomorrow morning
you can pick your team, but you have to take Freddy as your first choice
because he has had a little experience drilling on Mars. Freddy is not a leader,
he's a follower but a good worker and he knows a lot about Mars.” “How many
men would you think that I need?” “I don't know I haven't had any well drilling
experience, in fact you seem to be the only construction guy that I could find
with any.” “Lets start with about eight then. Ordinarily I would say that we need
timbers but since wood is scarce we can settle for a ladder and a superstructure
built from pipe, and a platform at the top made of lumber to hang the drill from.
By the way, do we have well drilling equipment?” “I don't know you might have
to improvise something.” Tim had stumbled across some equipment earlier that
day when he was looking for something else. That evening, after dinner he
enlisted Archy and a couple people that he knew and they constructed a ladder
the superstructure for the rig and a platform.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 3

2009-03-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

CHAPTER - Tim and Carla arrive on Mars
September 28, 2107: Mars now loomed bright as they looked out through
the port hole in their stateroom. It was mysterious and fascinating, they sat and
stared at it for hours. They were notified by Damien their room steward to be
prepared to disembark at 0800 the next morning. The Mars Orbiter was still not
in view but they knew it was out there and the Captain was sure to find it.
They were awakened by a loud clanking sound at 0345 They peered out
their porthole and could see nothing but the planet rotating below them. It was
an eerie feeling, like they were just hanging in space. Carla noted that the
planet really was Red. Carla went to work at her regular time but was told that
all she had to do was serve at 0600 and they would handle the clean up. After
breakfast they returned to their stateroom then went out and wandered in the
hall. They had never seen the hall that crowded, everyone was out wandering.
They were allowed to keep their work clothes which is what they were told to
wear. Their meager luggage was turned over to the baggage crew to be off
loaded to the orbiter. They were scheduled for 0800 departure. The Shuttle
Craft which was much like the one that had carried them Las Vegas to the Earth
Orbiter would be making round trips for the next week. When they boarded the
Shuttle they noticed that it was designed more to ferry cargo than people.
There were sixty people at a time loaded on to the Shuttle , Tim guessed that
the others would have to wait for the Shuttle to deliver them to the surface then
come back for more. They took a seat on a bench along one wall of the Shuttle.
The Shuttle was equipped to handle 15 passengers along each wall and thirty
more in the center sitting back to back. They located their seat belts and
strapped themselves down. As they broke the connection and eased away
from the orbiter they noticed another Shuttle arriving from the surface. The
reentry flight took just over an hour. It was not scary at all, the Shuttle just
glided into the hostile atmosphere and descended smoothly to the surface.
On the way to the surface the passengers got a good look at the
observatory. It was situated about two hundred yards from the freight elevator
at the end of the runway. They also saw the giant radio telescope dishes
mounted on the surrounding hills. They landed on a long smooth runway and
taxied to a small cement building adjacent to a platform that was apparently
large freight elevator. Twenty feet above the freight elevator was a another
platform that served as air lock when the freight platform was in the cavern.
The airlock was connected to the shuttle and they disembarked into the
elevator then the airlock was closed. Both the elevator and the Shuttle were
pressurized. They stood as the elevator descended the equivalent of twenty
five floors and came to an abrupt stop. The door slid smoothly open and they
stepped out into a Mars cavern. Two hundred yards from where they had
stepped off the elevator Tim noticed another elevator shaft running up the far
wall and continuing on through the cavern ceiling.
Tim and Carla took a deep breath, “Do you smell the stench, Carla?”
“Yes, sure I do but they say you won't notice it after a while thank goodness.”
“To me it smells like a sewer,” Tim added.
The lighting was a little dimmer than expected, otherwise, thanks to his
classes everything seemed as he had imagined it. They were greeted by both a
Government representative and a Company Executive. The Government man
appropriately declared, “Welcome to Mars, My name is Walter Potts, I am the
project director and this is Thelma Potts, the Mars Colony, Inc. manager, she is
also my wife of seventeen years. We both came up here with the Corps. Of
Engineers twelve years ago, when we had to live in our Mars suits at all times.
We are the oldest living residents of Mars and we are only in our forties. We
are over age for being here but our duties require little physical exertion, you
young folks are here to do the hard work. Do you want to add anything
Thelma?” “No I just want to welcome these nice people to Mars and I hope to
get to know you all personally as time goes by. I would like to tell you folks right
now that things are different here.” As timing would have it just as Thelma said
that a chicken flew by over their heads. “See what I mean,” she added. “Don't
worry about the chickens, they come and go as they please but always go
home to roost,eat and to lay their eggs.”
“Do any of you have any questions that you would like to ask us now?”
“Yes, I do, my name is John Prince, I played a lot of baseball up until the time I
took this job. It never occurred to me that Earth sports just would not work on
Mars, my question is are there any sports that you have here that we had on
Earth?” True there are a lot of sports that can not be played in low gravity but
there are several that do work and we play them, these include chipping a golf
ball and putting, croquet, shuffle board and horseshoe pitching. There are
some modifications to all of these sports to take low gravity into account but
they all work and are interesting to play.”
“There is one more but it really isn't a sport, it's low stakes poker, which
is a very popular pass time. We started out playing no limit games but things
got out of hand because everyone here has so much money. Some people
were getting hurt badly at no limit poker so we set a five dollar limit on any bet.
It is enforced on the honor system but I have heard that higher stakes games
still go on. If caught playing in a game that allows higher stakes you could be
facing a $5,000.00 fine. If anyone was actually fined the money would go into
the recreation fund.”
“Now if you will please follow me and I will take you on a brief tour of the
facility,” said Walter. The Government facility was quite large, about 320 acres,
or about the size of six tournament golf courses on Earth. There were several
hundred cement buildings, of various bright colors, some bore signs declaring
their purpose, others just numbers, “Look at that Carla they even have street
addresses.” “Watch out!” Carla yelled and yanked Tim aside, as a man in his
thirties skipped by.” “That is what I have been interested in seeing and trying as
soon as we got here,” Tim said, “We learned about it in class and I can't wait to
find my own gate.” As they looked at the people moving about in the clearing
they noticed that no one walked as people did on Earth. They each seemed to
have developed their own way of moving along. Some skipped, some hopped
like a rabbit. The kangaroo gate seemed to be popular but they were all moving
about as fast as an athlete could run on Earth. “I meant to tell you folks about
getting around down here, it is different than on Earth there are things you can
do here that you can't do there and visa versa. Here it is easy to jump up but
you must be careful not to injure yourself when you come down. My advise is
to just cautiously experiment with moving around until you find out just what
your capabilities are and what works for you. If you jump down off of something
you don't land as hard as you would on Earth but it is easy to fall into the trap of
thinking you can jump down from three times the height that you could on Earth
and you can but we do get a lot of serious sprains and broken bones that way.
Here you can jump high enough to be pretty certain that you are going to injure
yourself on your landing. The human body was designed to move around
safely in one g of gravity. Here things are different, all things considered I think
I like this atmosphere and gravity better but it takes some getting used to. For
the first month you are liable to accumulate quite a few black and blue marks
from bumping objects too hard. Watch how other people, who have been here
a while are moving and then try some of the maneuvers you see them
performing. Whatever you do don't hit anyone else and don't try any Martial
Arts moves on anyone else. Serious injury is inevitable if you do. Just be vary
cautious while you acclimate and you will do just fine.”
“Over here we have our gym, I am told that you were introduced to the
gym routine while you were on the ship. I just can't over emphasize the
importance of your daily workout, taking the vitamins you are issued daily and
getting your shot monthly for as long you remain in low gravity. The gym that
we have here is the same as the gym you were working out in while you were
on the ship. Our classes start every hour on the hour from 0600 through 1800.
You will have to sign in. If you miss a day of taking your vitamin supplements or
doing your exercises then it will be necessary for you to seek medical attention.”
One member of the group asked “I was told that you had a cavern for
The Company employees all sealed and pressurized, could you show us our
new home?” “Sure just follow me and try to keep up, I'll go slow so as not to run
away from you.”
They came to a tunnel entrance on the right side of the Government
cavern. The tunnel was approximately fifteen feet high and twenty feet wide.
They followed it for about fifty yards into a three times the size of the
government cavern. “I want you folks to know that everyone at this station has
been working their buns off getting this place ready for you. We even leveled
your floor which I didn't think we could get done but we did.
The Government handles the administration of this facility and the
research but Mars Colony, Inc. is the prime contractor. The Company is
responsible for facilities management. If there is any plumbing or wiring or
building to be done you are the ones who will carry out the tasks. You will be
responsible for facility development and maintenance. The Government takes
care of the atmosphere, I am sure you have already been briefed on your
responsibilities and project objectives. The Company plans to send as many
new employees as possible for the next three years. I am sorry that we were
unable to do more for you but we did all we could. The Company had only one
crew here until your ship docked. I think Thelma has some plans drawn up for
what will go where in this cavern but they are not written in stone and certainly
subject to your input.”
The lighting in the empty cavern was very dim but you could make out all
of the walls. The nice thing Tim Noticed was that there was a small river or
stream, that ranged from fifteen to twenty feet wide, that meandered through
the cavern dividing the front two thirds of the cavern from the back third. There
was even a water fall where the stream entered. It flowed into a small lake that
covered about ten acres. The river ran out of the far side of the lake for about
ninety feet before disappearing through the far wall.
Carla commented, “I am sure glad the ceilings on these caverns are so
high it keeps me from feeling claustrophobic. That is something I was worried
about.” Walter overheard Carla's remark and responded,“ The average ceiling
height in these two caverns is 254 feet. The highest point is 412 feet and the
lowest 196 feet,” just for your information.”
Tim noticed that the water coming down the falls was liquid but along the
edges of the stream there was a two Inch thick crust of ice and there was a
layer of ice about one Inch thick on the surface of the lake that covered about
five feet out, around the bank. “Why is there ice in the lake and river but not on
the falls and the river above the falls,” Tim asked Walter. “I asked that very
question of one of the geologists, Tim and he told me that the water above the
falls is only 31 degrees but because it is in an unpressurized atmosphere it
remains a liquid, once in enters this pressurized cavern it starts to solidify. If we
don't do something to warm this water, at least a little we will end up with an ice
skating rink instead of a stream and a lake in a few weeks. decreasing the
pressure raises the freezing point of water. That is why the water in the
unpressurized river was below 32 degrees but was not frozen when it entered
the cavern but began to freeze once it was exposed to this pressurized
environment. “That is interesting, I thought water always froze at 32 degrees.”
Note that we have installed a concrete plug at the river entrance and
another at the river exit. You can see that water flows beneath the plug, that is
so our precious atmosphere does not escape.”
“By the way how deep is the stream but more importantly how deep is
the lake?” “The stream is pretty shallow, only six foot at it's deepest point but
this lake is twenty foot at it's deepest point. The engineers tell me that it would
be easy to make the lake larger or smaller depending on our needs.
“That is a beautiful little stream but the water is very cold. I'm afraid we
won't be able to go swimming until we have geothermal heat installed. We
hope to, one day, be able to raise catfish in the lake as a food source. The
water is just a little brackish but very usable once you filter it through a reverse
osmosis system. Do not however drink it or bathe in it until it is filtered. We
have done so with no ill effects but it is taking a chance, we don't know where it
has been. “We do know that it contains unknown strains of bacteria and algae.
What we have tested is harmless but new strains of bacteria keep appearing.
There are Martian fish that occasionally seen swimming through. Some
of the fish are edible but they are like mushrooms, some are harmless and
some are lethal. One of your early projects will be to install a fish trap below the
falls to catch any fish that enter the cavern. New varieties of fish keep showing
up also, so it is best that you do not touch any of them, and certainly don't eat
any of them until we know more about them. Once we can positively identify
the edible ones we could begin raising them as a food source, the ones we
have dissected are pretty bony and don't appear to have much meat on them.
It might be better to bring fish in from Earth and try raising them but first we
have to prepare the ponds for them. Probably the next ship to arrive will carry
some fresh water fish, some salt water fish and fish food. I sure hope so, our
diet here is a little monotonous. Fish and Chips would sure be a welcome
improvement.”
“For the moment you new arrivals will be issued some basic necessities
and invited to put your air mattresses anywhere you can find room. We are
going to offer meals at our mess hall doubling the hours for all three meals.
Your kitchen staff will work with the present staff. Until your field kitchen is set
up we won't have enough cooking capacity to offer more than one hot dish per
meal, so get ready to eat some cold cuts for a couple days.”
Their hosts then lead them back through the tunnel to the Government
cavern where Thelma pointed out the supply building. She instructed them to
return to this building later in the day for their necessities. Each of them would
be issued an air mattress and a blanket. Hopefully tomorrow we will have the
rest of your equipment available but some of it you may have to wait a week to
get as it will take that long to unload all of the freight from Mars Supply Two,
which we frequently refer to as MS2. They were then given a phone book
containing over six hundred names followed by six digit numbers. Carla noticed
that all of the numbers started with 000. “What are these phone books for?”
asked one of the newcomers. “That is the Mars phone book my friend, it
contains the phone number of everyone living on the planet. On the front page
you will notice a special listing of important service numbers, we even have 911
service for emergencies.” “That's all well and good one newcomer responded
but we don't have phones.” “You will have as soon as your ship is unloaded
which could take, as I said before, anywhere from a day to a week and another
couple days to get them activated and programmed.”
Walter interrupted,“Now I have some other very interesting things to
show you.” He lead them to the other side of town where he pointed out a
building bearing a sign that read MARS-TV. Yes we have our own live TV news
twice a day, there is occasionally other live programing, the rest of the time they
show recorded video . They operate five channels during prime time but at
least one channel 24 hours a day. All of that is complements of the five major
Networks. In addition to the Government and Mars Colony, Inc. the networks
have a dozen employees here in the colony.
At the moment you are standing in Colony City, the capital city of the
Mars colony. And we are standing at the corner of Front Street and Colonial
Parkway. The other three streets are Main Street, Broadway and Industrial. I
am now leading you down to the equipment storage and supply lot at the end of
Industrial.”
“Here you will find all of the tools and equipment that you will be using.
On the other side of the lot is where we store all of our material's. A lot of our
equipment is old and due for replacement. Thanks to Jake, our motor pool
genius, most things are usually in working order. There is supposed to be a lot
of new equipment arriving on the Mars Supply Two that you arrived on. Even
more is expected when Mars Supply One comes in about four months from
now.”
“You folks just make yourselves at home and look around at anything
that interests you. The only restricted area is the observatory, to go there you
must be accompanied by an authorized employee. If you would like to visit the
observatory just flag down someone wearing a blue and white ID card pinned to
their jumpsuits. You are welcome to explore anywhere else in the city but it
would still be impolite to enter someone's home unless you were invited in.”
As promised lunch was mostly cold cuts and a bowl of soup. There was
a large bowl of pickled mushrooms on the chow line as well. “Where do the
mushrooms come from” Archie ask one of the cooks. “Mushrooms are the only
food that we currently produce here on Mars. We have a walled off room at the
back of this cavern that receives little light. We had some steer manure and
straw brought up from Earth a while back and the mushrooms thrive in it. You
will eat a lot of mushrooms while you are here.
Some of the scientists are raising a test vegetable garden under grow
lights but so far without much success, It takes so much electricity to power the
grow lights that it is cheaper to bring canned vegetables in from Earth. It would
help more than you could imagine if we had plenty of electricity.
The kitchen staff could recognize the members of our kitchen staff by
their white work clothes. Our kitchen workers were collared immediately and
put to work. There were about eight of ours already on the planet the rest were
still on the ship, or en route to the planet in one of the Shuttles.
There are three Shuttles but Shuttle three is already moving cargo from
the ship to the elevator pad which crossed through a double air lock to ground
level where men with electric fork lifts were removing pallets and placing them
in a preprepared area of the supply yard. As the fork lift drivers placed the
pallets in the holding area they spaced them out so workers could see and get
at the contents of each pallet. Tim found the foreman and was put to work
unpacking crates. “Lumber here is a precious commodity so we are very
careful in dismantling the wooden packing crates and the pallets. Everyone
wants wood to construct furniture and construction crews have an insatiable
appetite for wood for all sorts of things. We even straighten the nails and save
the screws and binding strips for future projects, so take your time and stack the
material that they contain so that people seeking that particular item can easily
locate it. Sort the lumber and nails and screws and put them into inventory in
those racks and bins over there.”
Tim had only unpacked a few things when he noticed it was almost
dinner time. He went to the mess hall where they once again had soup and
sandwiches. While he was eating, an ordinary house fly lit on the half sandwich
lying on his plate. Casually and without giving it a thought he shooed the fly
away, then it occurred to him, This is Mars, what are flies doing on Mars. He
asked Carla Later and she said “Oh, yeah, we see them all the time in the
kitchen, kinda reminds you of home doesn't it?”
After dinner he unpacked a few more crates while Carla was still working
in the kitchen. Then on his way to the kitchen, as he was rounding the building
what should he behold but an ant hill and hundreds of the little critters working
away, carrying bits of food from the kitchen. Carla said later, “They must have
been transported up from Earth with food stuffs and had just made the best of
it.”
The group that Included Tim and Carla had returned to the supply
building and drawn out a mattress, a blanket a porta-potty, two rolls of toilet
paper, some shaving depilatory, some after shave and several other items. The
bags with their belongings in them were also now available at supply. When
they had their items selected from the shelves they took them to the desk at the
rear of the room where the clerk scanned them and bagged them. “How do we
pay for these things?” Carla asked “Oh, there is no charge they are all free to
employees, even though you don't have your permanent ID cards I can see by
the cards that you are wearing that you just arrived today.
I have some good news for you. We have your cell phones in, they
apparently came off the ship in the first load. What are your phone numbers, I
will get them for you? Carla quickly consulted the phone book she had been
issued and gave the clerk the numbers. He disappeared into a back storage
room momentarily then returned with two cell phones. “Are you familiar with
these,” he asked. “No, you better show us.” “You just strap them to your wrist,”
he showed them his. “To make a call you push the big blue button beneath the
dial then speak the word 'CALL' followed by the name or number of the person
you want. ”He pushed the button on the face on his phone, then said “CALL'
Carla Erkin.” Carla's phone rang. The clerk then told Carla to depress the blue
button and immediately release it. Carla did as he had instructed and she
heard his voice coming from her phone. “Now Carla, to change volume
depress the red button on the top of the watch. There are four volume presets,
it starts at the lowest setting then keeps getting louder until it reaches maximum
volume then starts over at the lowest setting. When you want to disconnect
depress the blue button again and release it. Had I said “CALL” 000565 then
Tim's phone would have rung. You can either use the persons name or number
and it still works. There is a yellow button on the side of the watch, if it is
blinking that means you have a missed call. Depress that yellow button for
information about the call you missed. We already have a cell relay set up at
each end of The Company cavern so you can use your phones anywhere even
in the tunnel.” Tim and Carla started picking up their items but the clerk
interrupted again.
“Not so fast, I have one more little gadget for you, it is your personal
radio receiver. Bob produced two small plastic gadgets obviously shaped to fit
inside the outer ear like a hearing aid. There were two tiny buttons on the
outside. The clerk who's name was Bob removed his pen from his pocket and
depressed the red button several times and they could hear pop music coming
from the device. Bob then depressed the yellow button and the music changed
from pop music to Country and Western. He depressed it again and soft and
melodic music could be heard. One more time and they heard a voice talking.
“I guess that was pretty obvious,” he said. The red button turns the set on and
sets the volume. You need to Increase the volume by punching the red button
several more times in order to hear it while it is in your hand. Then you press
the yellow button to change stations. After changing stations depress the red
button again twice in rapid succession and it turns the device off then depress
the red button again and it comes back on at the lowest volume level. Hold it
up to your ear and if you can hear it all right put it in your ear. If you want it a
little louder depress the red button once or twice more to Increase the volume to
where you want it. Then insert it into your ear. There are five volume settings
and there are four radio stations always broadcasting. One plays pop music,
one plays C&W, one plays elevator music and the fourth is talk radio. Talk radio
is the most popular. We have ten or so talk radio hosts, most of them invite
listeners to call in and give their opinion about the subject being discussed. The
three music stations are automated but the talk station is live, it comes on at
0500 every day and goes off at 2400. Up until now we only had three hundred
people on Mars so we didn't get all that many people calling in but now with
over six hundred people there will probably be a lot more call ins. When no
one calling in then the host reads news or just blabbers on with his or her own
opinions and views. If there is an emergency the host can over ride the music
broadcasts and switch everyone's set to the talk station while they describe the
emergency or make the announcement that management has given them that
effects everyone. They even break in on the music to remind people that the
dining room opens in five minutes or lights out is in ten minutes, stuff like that.
You don't have to have your radio on at all times but it is a good idea to keep it
on so you don't miss an important announcement.” Tim and Carla adjusted their
volume and of course selected talk radio and inserter the devices in their ear.
“Most people just remove the device if they are having a live conversation with
someone and don't want to be disturbed by their radio for a little while but many
of us have gotten so used to them that we can hold a private conversation with
the radio on. Whatever works for you. The battery is good for about a year but
if it goes dead just drop by and I will put a new battery in for you.”
“Any time you folks think of anything else you want between the hours of
0800 and 2000 just drop in and pick it up. I might suggest that you take one of
those first aid kits over there because you are bound to get some cuts and
scratches during your first few days. The atmosphere here in these caverns is
richer in Oxygen than you are used to on Earth so be sure and take one of the
Oxygen pills if you get light headed and the condition will clear up immediately.
They took a first aid kit and the clerk, Bob scanned it and put it in their bag.
They also noticed a plastic privacy shield that stood four feet high and was
supported by four plastic posts, they could tell by the picture on the label that
they were intended for use with the porta-potty, so they took one of these also.
They then selected a pair of clean work clothes each.
“When ever you folks want clean work clothes just bring back the dirty
ones and deposit them in the big hamper out front, then come in here and draw
clean ones,” Bob told them. “We have some big washers and dryers set up in
the building behind this one.” “What happens to the waste water?” Tim asked.
“There is just a sump hole in the public rest rooms and all the waste water and
stuff goes down that hole, we never see it again and really don't know where it
goes from here. Maybe it comes to a river down there somewhere and just
flows off into uncharted territory. One thing for sure is that this planet can use
all the bacteria it can get from us humans.” Maybe so, thought Tim, now that we
have finished polluting the Earth we can start polluting Mars. Of course, the
handful of people that are here now are just surviving the best they can but
someday soon someone is going to have to address waste disposal before it
becomes a real problem.
After they left Tim told Carla, “On Earth now they have equipment in third
world countries that can process human waste and kill all the harmful bacteria
and germs but leave a useful top soil material that can be used safely to grow
crops. There are plenty of nitrates in this Martian soil that we find below the
surface of the planet. These Nitrates are one of the main components that
enable plants to grow. The Nitrates feed the sugar bacteria produced by the
process of photosynthesis. We have plenty of nitrates on Mars and after all that
is the backbone of producing a fertile top soil that will support growing plants. It
also produces the Nitrogen that makes up the bulk of our atmosphere. The
action of the nitrates feeding the sugar bacteria is what enables the plant to give
off Nitrogen. Lack of fertile top soil containing nitrates is one of the biggest
problems in the third world. Top soil is an even bigger problem, there are parts
of Africa that used to support farms that now lay barren because the top soil has
all blown away. Even in the United States back in the 1920's they had what
they called the dust bowl, where all the topsoil was either covered with fine dust
or had blown away. Thousands were driven from their homes in Oklahoma and
North Texas.”
Tim wrote a report about what he knew on this subject and passed it off
to one of the scientists that he saw walking through the compound. The
scientist stopped long enough to read what Tim had handed him then told Tim
that, “a machine like that is already en route to Mars and they should have it on
the next ship. We have not had one in place sooner because it hasn't been our
highest priority. With the addition of all you new guys we know that good top
soil proper waste disposal will now be of greater importance. We have tried
killing the bacteria in human waste on the surface but when we get it back down
here in the cavern it is just as useless as all the other Mars soil. Those
unfiltered UV rays on the surface kill all bacteria. Including the bacteria that our
bodies are composed of.”
Tim said when they left the supply building that he would like to spend
his first night near the public rest rooms because he did not relish using the
porta-potty. Carla wanted to be close to the Mess Hall also so they located a
spot between two permanent houses then asked the occupants if it would be
OK if they camped there that evening. “Sure, If there is anything you need or if
I can be of any help just let me know.”
“I can't get over how friendly and accommodating everyone is here, “
Carla remarked. “Yeah it's sure a lot different from Earth, it's just like being on
another planet, Ha Ha.
Little did any of the more than three hundred people who had arrived on
the Mars Supply Two that day that only fourteen of them would ever return to
Earth.

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 2

2009-03-27T07:09:00.001-07:00

CHAPTER - The trip to Mars
July 7, 2107: Upon arrival their Shuttle pulled along side the Orbiter then
matched the orbital speed. They heard some clunking sounds then after about
five minutes the door slid open. There were about 35 passengers on the flight
from Las Vegas, most appeared to be in their mid to late twenties. Just as with
a conventional airliner passengers began to stand up and retrieve their carry on
luggage. A young lady in a snappy light blue NASA uniform appeared at the
door and ushered the passengers into the orbiter terminal. They found seats in
the waiting room. They were seated beside a large man. They assumed the
man was to be a passenger on the same flight they were taking, and struck up
a conversation with him.
“Hi, I am Tim Erkin and this is my wife Carla, are you also a new Mars
Colony, Inc. employee?” “ Yeah, I was just hired” said the man in a deep
baritone voice that you would expect from a man of his size. “My name is
Archibald Shrimp, but everybody just calls me Archy. I am from West Virginia, I
signed on as a laborer but I am also a part time minister of the gospel. I was
called for preachen bout eight years back. I been worken in the coal mines
most of my life. I spect we gonna get to know each other pretty well in the next
ten years.
They had a chance to become only briefly acquainted with Archy before
the NASA hostess announced that they could now board and get their room
assignments. The thirty five of them were lead through the air lock and into
another waiting room, this time on the ship.
Carla remarked to Tim “That man we just met just does not seem like
the kind of person that the company would hire, he talks like he is downright
ignorant.” “That's not the impression I got,” Tim responded. “I've been back in
those hills touring the coal mines and that is the way they all talk.”
A junior ship's officer dressed in a blue jumpsuit, and wearing ensign's
bars, started calling names from a roster. White clad attendants lead the
passengers off one by one or in groups of two, to the assigned rooms that they
would be calling home for the next two and a half months.
Tim and Carla were told that since they were a married couple they were
entitled to a suite. Their Suite turned out to be an eight by fourteen foot room
with a double bed, two folding chairs and a small round table. The floors were
carpeted. There was a fairly large TV screen mounted on the wall in front of the
bed. There was also a built in dresser and mirror. There was a four foot by five
foot enclosure near the entrance that took up part of their space, it contained a
shower, toilet basin and mirror. All in all pretty spartan but what did they expect
on a space ship.
They had no more than put their carry on luggage on the bed when there
was a knock at the door. It was the their steward who had shown them to their
room. He introduced himself as Damian, their steward. He told them to let him
know if they needed anything, not that he would get it for them but he would tell
them how to get it. They could always reach him or the steward on duty
through the intercom mounted on the wall beside the bed. “At the moment
though,” he said, you are to go to The Company Room 812 where you will be
issued your on board ID cards. They will be ready for you when you get there.”
Following Damian's directions they took the narrow stairway down three
floors to the eighth floor where they located room 812. They received yellow ID
cards with their picture on them. They were told they must wear these ID cards
at all times. They later found out that yellow meant they were workers
employed by Mars Colony, Inc. The nice young lady that issued them their
cards ask if they had any questions. “Yeah, where is the dining room the class
room and the bar.” asked Tim? “Here is a map of the parts of the ship that you
are authorized access to. I am afraid that we refer to the dining room as the
mess hall. The bar only serves soft drinks or coffee. It is called the 'Day Room'
you will be going to different classrooms from time to time. They are all
numbered on your map. You will see color coding on each floor, you are only
authorized access to the top three floors, 8, 9, and 10. Enjoy your trip, these
are the best accommodations that you will have in the next ten years.”
In their exploration of the top floors they found a nice Day Room with a
small library, a mess hall that would seat about four hundred diners an
adequately equipped gymnasium. They also located several locked
classrooms. Peering through the doors revealed some strange paraphernalia
inside. Many of them resembled what was probably a rendition of the Martian
landscape.
Upon returning to their room Carla turned on the TV. They saw a
schedule displayed on the screen. Breakfast was from 0600 to 0700, lunch
from 1200 to 1300 and dinner from 1700 to 1800, meals would be served at no
other hours. The time on the clock at their bedside indicated that it was already
1130, almost time for lunch. There was a button marked personal messages on
the remote control so Carla gave that a try. Their names appeared on the TV
screen accompanied by a message that said that they were both to appear at
room 914 for orientation at 1330. There was a message for Carla that said she
should report to the mess hall at 0400 for training. There was also a message
for Tim. It said that he should report to room 865 at 0730 to begin training. They
kinda chuckled and Carla said “Well so much for a long leisurely trip.”
They arrived at the mess hall at 1200 sharp to find about one hundred
people ahead of them in line. They noticed when they got up to the door that
the diners were taking a plastic tray, stainless steel silverware and a paper
napkin. Then by placing their tray on top of the glass sneeze guard and easing
it forward they received a portion of everything offered. Once seated they
noticed a selection of sauces along with salt and pepper on each table. The
food they found to be institutional but adequate.
At the Orientation they learned that the ship which maintained artificial
gravity had started with 85% Earth gravity. They all acknowledged that they
had noticed the reduced gravity and were fascinated by it. “Here is how it is
going to work” explained the Government speaker. “We start at 85% but that
will diminish as the trip progresses. By the time we reach the two month mark
of this journey we we will have the gravity down to thirty five percent. That is in
order to get you accustomed to Mars gravity gradually so it won't be as much of
a shock to your system when you actually arrive there. Prolonged exposure to
a gravity of less than 1.0 which is the gravity off Earth will cause stress on your
body. This need not be a problem, at least not while you are on Mars but it
could be when you return to Earth. You could have dizziness, problems
maintaining your balance, nausea and disorientation for several months after
your return. There are things that we can do to minimize the effects living in low
gravity. After this meeting you will be given a shot which will strengthen your
bones and muscles, you will receive a stronger dose of that medication each
month of your trip. You will continue to receive the shots monthly during your
stay in reduced gravity, while on Mars and on your return voyage. You will
continue to receive modified shots monthly for the first two years after your
return to Earth. It is complicated but the human body tends to circulate blood
differently in reduced gravity. The system you were born with was designed to
function best at 1g but we have found that system can function just well at thirty
five percent of 1g if the proper medication is administered on a regular basis.
These shots will help prevent you from developing osteoporosis and muscle
degeneration as well as adjusting your blood flow to and from your heart and
brain. Missing the shots could result in serious medical consequences so be
sure to get your shot monthly. The shots alone will not do it. You will be
furnished with special vitamins that are to be taken daily. It will be necessary for
you to enter a special exercise room on Mars, and on this ship every day.
These exercise rooms are equipped with artificial gravity and will Increase
gravity gradually by 50% during the hour that you are using the exercise
equipment. You will do some high impact exercise like weight lifting and some
low impact rapid movement exercise such as treadmill and bike riding at each
session. You will need to do these exercises on a daily basis. If you shirk these
exercises or don't give 100% you will be shortening your life expectancy
considerably, particularly after your return to Earth. Perhaps some of you have
already found the gym on this ship and thought, well that is a nice touch for the
exercise nuts but it is far more important than that. The exercise is vital and
necessary for your survival. Because of the gravity change that takes place
exercise periods commence on the hour every hour so plan your day
accordingly. You must slide your ID card when you start your exercise period.
Anyone who goes 24 hours without exercising will be held accountable. Get
used to it as you will be doing it every day for the next ten years, or for however
long you remain in low gravity. Just so you will know the gravity on Mars is at
thirty five percent. The lowest gravity that human beings can tolerate over an
extended period of time is 33% so gravity is your enemy. Regular exercise,
shots and vitamins are your friend.”
“Next I would like to discuss the matter of time and date. The time that
we use on the ship and the time that is currently being used on the planet is
Greenwich mean time and the calendar is the ordinary Earth calendar that you
have used all your life. We use Greenwich Mean time based on the 24 hour
clock. We do this because an ordinary wrist watch can provide you with this
information instantly The 24 hour clock is also called military time. The United
States military has used this 24 hour day for over two hundred years. Please
never refer to AM or PM again when giving someone the time.”
Since humans seldom go to the surface of Mars and when they do, it is
for only one hour or less at a time, it is more or less irreverent what time it is on
Mars or what the date is. scientists have worked out a Martian clock and
calendar. The display also gives the current temperature and wind speed. If
you are planning work on the surface it will be necessary to consult the Martian
clock and calendar that has been posted in several places in the Government
cavern and adjacent to each elevator. You can continue by the same time and
date that you have always used. It is important that humans only go out on the
surface when the weather is warmest and the light is best.
“It is inevitable that a certain amount of work will have to be performed
on the surface but it is important that you know that you can not even tolerate
the surface for one second without suffering serious health consequences.
Fortunately we have developed Mars suits which are similar to space suits in
appearance but quite different in many ways. They are specially equipped to
handle the outdoor conditions on the planet. While wearing one of these suits
in the middle of the day a man can work on the surface for up to an hour under
optimum conditions but in no circumstance is it safe to work outdoors in a Mars
suit for more than an hour at a time without coming in and removing the suit for
an hour before venturing out again. Twice a year there are winds that blow
across the surface at speeds ranging from two hundred fifty to four hundred
miles per hour. If you are caught in one of these winds you will be found dead if
you are ever found at all and it won't matter whether you are wearing a Mars
Suit or not. So no one is allowed on the surface to do any kind of work without
obtaining a slip from the project safety engineer. The average temperature on
the surface of the planet is -55 degrees Fahrenheit. The warmest temperature
ever recorded on the surface of the planet was eighty degrees. Mice
introduced to the surface for even three seconds just explode. Don't think that
you can venture out through an air lock even for a second it would probably be
fatal. Surface conditions are constantly monitored by the project safety
engineer who has been thoroughly schooled in determining when outside work
can safely be performed ”
“You are each being given a vitamin box with the date on each
compartment. You will be given a new box a few days before the end of each
month. You absolutely must take that days vitamins every morning after
breakfast. It may be desirable to take vitamin supplements on Earth but on
Mars it can mean the difference between life and death. If you find that you
have missed a day then report immediately to sick bay for a shot. It is vitally
important on Mars that you properly maintain a human body that was never
intended to be there in the first place. We don't want you to feel any trepidation
over the things I have just told you. If you go by the rules you will be fine. You
will be able to return to Earth safe and sound.”
“Now for an interesting little demonstration of artificial gravity. My
assistant on the platform above me is going to drop a rubber ball at my feet. Go
ahead and drop the ball Fred.” The ball hit right in front of the speaker but
instead of bouncing back straight up to him it careened off into the audience,
coming down near the back of the room where a woman prepared to catch it.
Instead of her catching it the ball hit the man two seats down from her in the
chest. He picked it up and the speaker said, “great, now throw the ball back to
me.” When the man threw the ball he was off by about 20 feet. “What does this
demonstration tell us? We are in artificial gravity in a relatively small enclosure.
Even though this ship is as wide as a football field and four times as long it is
still relatively small as space objects go. Artificial gravity behaves differently
from planetary gravity. The larger the object the less difference there is
between artificial and planetary gravity. On Mars which is a planet that
generates it's own gravity the ball would behave more like it would on the Earth
but not exactly. You will eventually adapt to the differences without realizing it
but at first it will seem strange to you because by that time you will have
become accustomed to the way gravity behaves on this ship. This difference
could cause some nausea and equilibrium problems in some people but it is not
serious. It is a temporary condition, it will pass. It is caused by the inner ear
trying to adjust to the new environment. If it causes you too much distress go to
sick bay. They will issue you some medication that may help.”
“Are there any questions at this time?” “Yes,” a woman in the audience
asked. “I thought it took six months to reach Mars even when Mars was at it's
closest point to Earth, how is it that this voyage is going to take only two and a
half months?” “The six months and more voyages were based on launching a
vehicle into space and then shutting down the engines and allowing the space
vehicle to continue on to its destination at the speed that it had attained when
the engines were shut down. On this craft the engines are never shut down
because the ship is powered by nuclear energy. We will continue to accelerate
for about half the journey then will decelerate for the second half. That reduces
the travel time greatly. At the maximum that we will reach on this trip the ship
will be traveling at about one hundred sixty seven million miles per hour, about
one fourth the speed of light. Mars is much too close to Earth to go much faster
than that. We would run the risk of overshooting the planet entirely and leaving
the solar system. A far more sophisticated ship than this is presently under
construction that will exceed the speed of light but at the speed of light it would
still take approximately four and a half years to reach the next solar system
knows as Alpha Centauri.”
“(Alpha Centauri (R Cen / R Centauri) is the brightest star system in the
southern constellation of Centaurus. Although it appears as a single point to
the naked eye, Alpha Centauri is actually a system of three stars, one of which
is the fourth brightest star in the night sky. Alpha Centauri is famous in the
Southern Hemisphere as the outermost "pointer" to the Southern Cross, but it
is too far south to be visible in most of the northern hemisphere. The two
brightest components of the system are too close to be resolved as separate
stars by the naked eye and so are perceived as a single source of light with a
total visual magnitude of about S0.27 (brighter than the third brightest star in the
night sky, Arcturus).”
“Alpha Centauri is the closest star system outside our own solar system,
being 4.39 light-years distant, about 25.8 trillion miles . Proxima Centauri, often
regarded as part of the system, is 4.26 light-years distant. Alpha and Beta
Centauri are the second closest pair of first magnitude stars as seen from the
Earth, and due to the effects of proper motion, they will become the closest pair
around 2166, overtaking Acrux and Becrux”.
“There being no more questions this orientation is adjourned. Be sure to
pick up your vitamins on the way out, also be sure to visit the gym for your
workout, on the hour, at some point that fits your schedule during each 24 hour
cycle.”
The orientation lasted just over an hour. “Well said Carla I guess I
should take my vitamins for star date whatever it is.” “No, you are supposed to
take those after breakfast, remember, we should start tomorrow.” After their
workout and a lite dinner they returned to their room. By this time they had
forgotten all about needing a nap, besides they would have to go to bed early if
Carla was to be in the kitchen at 0400 to begin training.
“Training, that is a laugh, why don't they just call it what it is KP duty?”
“Oh, well, Carla I might luck out and they may teach me how to nail 2x4's
together.” They had intended to check out the coffee bar and day room but
opted to watch a movie on TV, then turn in for the night. They found that could
just select “Movie” on their remote control then a list of over three hundred
movies were available, Including the latest releases that were just now reaching
the box office. It didn't matter which movie they selected, they fell asleep
almost as soon as it started.
July 8, 2107: Carla was kind of amazed when she arrived at the kitchen
the next morning. She was directed to a classroom adjacent to the kitchen
where she could watch what was going on in the kitchen through a large
window. Within five minutes the room attracted twelve other students who
began to get acquainted with one another. This was important to her because
she knew that these were the people she would be working with for the next ten
years of her life. Carla introduced herself to a couple of the others but mostly
just listened as one after the other talked about their backgrounds in food
service and how they had come to be here. She caught a few names but didn't
concentrate on doing so because she would know each of them very well in due
time.
About 0410 a man in cooks whites entered the room, he was a medium
built man of about 40 “Good Morning Students, my name is Don Morino. I am a
member of the ships crew not a member of the kitchen staff. My job is to
provide you with the necessary instruction to enable you to hit the ground
running when you arrive at your duty station.” The first thing he did was to
introduce one of the students as their new mess boss. The woman's name was
Hilda Gorman, she would be in charge of the kitchen operation for the
employees of Mars Colony, Inc. “Hilda will during this voyage select four of you
to be head cooks. She will also select three crews of three cooks each from the
rest of you. So Hilda would you like to address your crew before we get
started?” “I don't have much to say at this time but the other students should
know that for the last nine years I have been employed in the kitchen of a major
hospital. I am married. My husband has also been hired by The Company
because of his background as a hydrological engineer for mining operations
throughout the Northeast. We obviously have no children or we wouldn't be
here. I have a BA degree as a dietitian from Arver college. I went to work for
Central State Hospital in Trenton right out of college. I worked my way up from
the bottom. When I left to take this job, I was in charge of the entire food
service program of the hospital. I am pretty well qualified to have the position
that I hold and I hope that I can adapt to the conditions we find on Mars, I hope
we all can.”
When Hilda sat down Don continued “I guess I owe you an apology, you
are going to have some problems when you first arrive on station. Your kitchen
and dining room is in the hold of this ship, it will have to be installed after you
arrive. Until then you will be using an army field kitchen that is also in the hold
of this ship but can be set up quickly. I am having the field kitchen brought up
here one piece at a time so I can teach you how to use each item to feed three
hundred hungry people. Your refrigerator and freezer space will be shared with
the Government kitchen that is presently operating. Their mess officer has
agreed to accommodate you to the best of his ability but expect some problems
as they don't have that much refrigeration space to spare. You will have to
serve a lot of canned and dehydrated food until your facilities are functioning.”
“The on board food service crew is operating short handed because they will
expect you people to help them with serving and kitchen clean-up for every
meal until we arrive at Mars Station. With that Don lead them to an adjoining
locker room. Please give my assistant your size. She will issue you a set of
whites which you should put on as soon as you receive them. There are
dressing rooms in the rear of the locker room. Your lockers already have your
name on them. My assistant will provide you with the combination to your
locker. Once you are satisfied that the whites are the right size go up and draw
two more sets. Put them, along with your regular clothes, into your locker.
The whole crew shortly found themselves serving breakfast to the
passengers. Once everyone had been served they filled their own trays and
found a seat. Carla found Tim seated with Archibald Shrimp and two other men
she didn't know. They introduced themselves quickly because they were
already eating their breakfast. They had been served scrambled eggs, corned
beef hash, biscuits and gravy and some sliced fresh fruit. “Enjoy your fresh
fruit, once it is gone you probably won't see any fresh fruit for years to come,.”
said the man who had introduced himself as Jack Overmeyer.
The clean up didn't take long and by the time Carla returned to the class
room there was an assortment of cooking appliances at the front of the room.
Don Morino spent the rest of the morning until lunch explaining the proper use
of the equipment. It seemed to Carla that it wouldn't be half bad using this
equipment on a temporary basis as everything seemed pretty well thought out.
Lunch was pretty much a repeat of the breakfast scene. After the cleanup they
were given the afternoon off but told to show up to serve dinner and help with
the clean up again. For the rest of the journey Carla pretty much followed the
same routine. Classes covered all the basic kitchen and cooking skills, food
preservation, sanitation and everything else that most of them were already
quite familiar with. There were a few new things to be aware of, mostly those
concerned becoming accustomed to cooking in low gravity. They didn't seem
particularly complicated, just different, they were techniques that would come
naturally after a few days. Carla found for example that two women could
easily carry a 20 gallon pot of liquid that would weigh about 180 lbs on Earth but
on Mars would only weigh only thirty five percent of that much or about 56 lbs.
If you flipped eggs in a pan to turn them over they might soar to five feet before
they started their decent and then they probably wouldn't come down in the
pan. Until their kitchen was completed on Mars they would be getting their
water in five gallon jugs but not a problem she could lift one easily by herself, it
would weigh 40 lbs on Earth but only weighed 14 lbs on Mars. There were lots
of other things like that.
She chose the early afternoon to go to the gym. The exercises were
about what she had expected but they seemed a little easier to do. Gravity was
still at 85% on the ship.
Tim's training started after breakfast. Tim had an hour or so before he
had to report to start his training. He found the right room and arrived about five
minutes before 0730. There were over two hundred people in the room when
the instructor arrived promptly at 0730. He was dressed from head to foot in a
Mars Suit. There was a microphone in the helmet and a speaker that amplified
his words. There was also a speaker for each ear. His hearing was very
sensitive while wearing the suit. He told them that if turned his volume up to
max he could hear a pin drop one hundred yards away. He spent the next hour
explaining the features of the Mars suit as he removed parts of it from his
person. This suit is unlike a space suit in a number of ways, he told them
because a space suit was designed to wear in a weightless environment,
whereas the Mars suit was designed to protect the wearer from the cold, the UV
rays and from the atmosphere of Mars. The boots were different and the fabric
was much tougher and harder to penetrate because the wearer would be doing
hard physical labor while wearing the suit. The suit air sealed around the neck
so even if the suit were compromised the helmet would remain intact and the
wearer might have time to patch the hole.
Humans working on the surface of the planet always work in pairs. We
always send two people to do one persons job. The iron rule of survival on the
surface is NEVER GO OUTSIDE ALONE. not for any reason, under any
circumstance ever. There are no exceptions to that rule.
“My name is Ashton Thompson, I am the head instructor for the
Company. I will not be going to the planet with you but I was a Captain with the
Army Corps of Engineers that constructed the first habitat on Mars I have spent
more time on the surface of the planet than almost anyone else. The other
instructors were also there with the Corps. You should pay very close attention
to everything they teach you because it is your life that depends on it.”
“You will only be asked or allowed to work on the surface for an hour at a
time. That does not Include working in the caverns that have yet to be
pressurized where you can work up to four hours at a time while wearing the
Mars suit. The caverns on Mars are full of fissures that lead to the surface.
Until all of the fissures have been sealed and the cavern pressurized you must
work in a Mars suit. Once the cavern has been pressurized and heated and
atmosphere introduced you can work in an ordinary jump suit. “
“Most of the work you will be doing in addition to what I have just
described is leveling the floors and building the million and one things that
people need to carry on their lives. Your present priorities will be to finish
setting up The Company cavern to accommodate the three hundred people that
The Company is sending on this ship. The cavern has already been sealed and
pressurized and the floor leveled but your first two priorities must be to
complete the dining room and kitchen and to complete instillation of the
bathroom facilities. Installation of the thermo electric generator for power and
the reverse osmoses system for water purification are items that are also very
high on the list of priorities.”
The the thermo electric generator equipment for that project is on board
this ship. It is essential that we obtain our power and heat from some source
other than diesel generators.” The sooner accomplish these high priority
objectives the more comfortable you will be and the happier the Company will
be.“
“Once these things are completed then you will be sealing a large cavern
that we have found that is withing tunneling distance from the cavern that The
Company will be occupying. Once that cavern is completed and powered by
geothermal energy The Company will be sending in 3,000 more employees to
complete the main cavern which is about the size of the State of Rode Island.
Mars Colony, Inc and the Unites States Government are very aggressive in
pursuit of the goal of occupying the large cavern.
In anticipation of taming that large cavern the company figures they will
need three thousand more employees. Since we are only capable of
transporting about one thousand two hundred workers per year every flight from
now on will be loaded to capacity. Once the large cavern is completed and
settlers begin to arrive more and larger ships will be required to keep them
supplied. Two more space craft are presently under construction. One which
will be dubbed Mars Runner is twice as large and twice as fast as this ship. The
other ship, yet unnamed will be ten times the size of this ship. It will be capable
of speeds greater than the speed of light. It could be capable of journeys
beyond the solar system into deep space.
All of the work on Mars will never be done just as all the work on Earth
will never be done but once the large cavern is finished and populated you can
expect to see cities with business and shopping malls just as you see now on
Earth. Land will be bought and sold just as on Earth. There will be an
independent Government elected by the people. Mars will be a fully functioning
planet.” Since this is all being done by the United States the new settlements
will be a part of the United States.
“That in a nutshell is our plan and your mission.” Our goal beyond my
lifetime is to convert the atmosphere of Mars to be more Earth like which would
involve rotating the planet faster which would Increase the gravity and enable
the planet to retain an atmosphere which we could introduce. At that future time
we would have to figure out how to produce an ozone layer on Mars that would
shield the surface from deadly radiation. Perhaps a friendly atmosphere would
generate it's own ozone layer. We know that those things are possible but it will
probably be another hundred years or more before they are realized. One thing
for certain once this planet is colonized with the technology that we now have
the scientists will be working hard to solve those bigger problems.
“We have prepared sixty lessons and have allowed six to eight hours for
each lesson. You will be broken up into fifteen groups of eleven or twelve
students in each group and will take one lesson per day. The lessons all have
to do with using the equipment, how to do the necessary jobs, safety and the
like. We have 15 instructors so by the time you reach Mars you should pretty
much know what to do and how to do it no matter what your previous
background has been. Most of you have a few years experience in the building
trades and that will be a desirable background to build on. It is just that on Mars
you will be using different materials and different tools. We have posted your
names on the cork board at the back of the room. There are 20 copies for each
team so take a copy of the one for your team. It will tell you what room to report
to and what time to be there for the entire course.”
“You may have the rest of the day off to get acquainted with each other,
you will be working together for a long time, explore the part of the ship where
you have authorization and to set aside one hour for exercising in the gym.”
“Incidentally, if you didn't know there is a restaurant that serves a first
class dinner with two drinks or two glasses of wine. You can order anything you
want from the menu, they are open from 1700 to 2200 every evening. The food
and service are the very best. The restaurant is run by a contract vendor. The
price is a little steep by Earth standards, $200.00 per person but that covers
everything, even the gratuity. You will find the restaurant behind an unmarked
door in room 888. Reservations are required, just ask your room steward to set
them up for you. You will not be allowed to eat there more than once a week.
You may pay by sliding your ID card and the price will be deducted from your
next pay check. You might want to have one more meal in a top notch
restaurant before you disembark. This will probably be your last opportunity for
ten years.”
There was an extended question and answer period but the meeting let
out by 1000 hours. Tim found his name on the list for group 11. He was
pleased to see the name Archibald Shrimp on the same list. It was easy to find
Archy, then together they watched for others taking a copy of list 11. They coat
tailed five of them. Someone suggested they go to the coffee shop and get
acquainted. The coffee shop served all beverages for one dollar except the
special coffee's which were $5.00. Once again you could slide your ID card and
have the amount deducted from wages. As it turned out the coffee shop was
run by the same company that ran the restaurant.
There was one girl in the group but the other six were all guys. The girl
was black and that didn't make Archy unhappy at all. She turned out to be
Gladys Hayes and was a high rise construction worker from New York City, yes
a beam walker. Albert Gonzalez was a tile layer from Albuquerque, John
Prince, had worked for a paving contractor in Spokane, Alan Nagoyuk, had
worked as a construction foreman in Fairbanks. All but John took a dollar cup
of coffee, John opted for a cafe-lata for $5.00, “What the hell, I am going to be a
millionaire,” he said. They found a large round table and began to tell each
other their life stories.
Albert said that aside from his job laying tile his hobby had been cave
exploration, he had been a Speleological Society member for eight years and
had explored caves all over North America. “My friends of course refer to me
as the cave man.”
Alan said that he had been a member of the Alaska, National Guard and
had instructed survivalist training in the guard.
John Prince said “I started playing baseball in little league and have
played all my life, I even made a minor league roster for a year before I figured
out that I just did not have what it takes to make it in the majors so I just play
baseball now as a hobby.” Tim noted “You won't be playing any baseball on
Mars, I'm afraid because baseball won't work there, a pitcher could throw a
baseball hard enough to kill a man on Mars and a sharp line drive could also be
lethal, a man just can't handle a baseball coming at him three hundred miles per
hour. Also worthy of mention here is that football, basketball and soccer won't
work on Mars either. A quarterback could pass a ball two hundred yards and
could throw it hard enough to kill his receiver. Basketball might sort of work but
everyone in the game could shoot from anywhere on the court with ease but
probably could only make a slam dunk because the ball would go awry.
Dribbling wouldn't work very well either nor would passing. Soccer, hockey, all
Earth sports are out on Mars, tennis, that's out too, the projectile just moves too
fast and has lethal potential with every play. We are just going to have to invent
new sports, maybe using oversize Nerf balls.” “I never thought of it that way but
I guess you are right, we will just have to invent our own new sports and start
from scratch.” said Archy. “Cave exploration and arctic survival could be useful
skills though.”
After their chat they all showed up for their exercise class in the gym, it
wouldn't ordinarily have been conducted as a class but since they were all new
at it the instructor lead them all through the exercise routine for the first time
together. They learned that they had to move slow in low gravity and set the
machines for high resistance, if they moved fast they could hurt themselves. If
they set the machines for ordinary gravity they wouldn't feel any resistance at
all. Even doing calisthenics you have to move slowly the instructor told them.
Right now that doesn't a apply because we are presently at 82% gravity but on
Mars it will be very true.
July 11, 2107: Tim and the others had started their training, Carla had
continued her training and they sort of fell into a routine. After her first day of
starting at 0400 hours they had changed Carla's reporting hour to 0530 so she
would be there in time to help in getting the breakfast line set up to serve
breakfast. Her classes ran from 0700 to 1130 when she helped with lunch then
she was off until it was time to set up for dinner at 1630, she was all through for
the day at 2000 hours. Tim attended classes from 0800 to 1200 then from 1300
until they had finished with the lesson plan for the day. They began to make
new acquaintances and friends within the group that would remain on Mars with
for years to come. Everyone had taken a liking to Hilda, she was real people.
One couple that they spent a lot of time with were Juan and Lupe Rivera,
who were also recruited as a couple. Juan was an MD with a specialty Space
Medicine. Lupe was a Registered Nurse Practitioner, specializing in family
health care. Both of them had degrees from UCLA Medical School in Los
Angeles. They had both been working at L.A. County General when they were
selected for this job. Juan had made several journey's into space for NASA as
resident physician. “I'll bet that The Company paid dearly to get you two, “ Tim
remarked shortly after they had met. “Not as much as you might imagine,” Juan
responded, “I guess it was because we wanted this gig so badly, we were
willing to sell out cheap.” Juan told them that there were at least three other
physicians and half a dozen other nurses on this flight that The Company had
hired to care for their employees. “We have a whole clinic in the hold of this
ship. I am hoping that you construction boys give us a priority when it comes to
setting up our clinic.” “I don't have anything to say about priorities” said Tim “but
I will sure put in a good word for you, and on my day off I could help with some
of the setup, Just think Juan, if they put it to a vote most of these folks would
want the kitchen and dining room set up first. Only the sick ones would want
the clinic. Besides the Government already has their clinic set up and you
could work out of there until your clinic is up and running.” “I heard that they
don't even have a roof over their head at that clinic”, said Juan. “Nobody on
Mars has a roof over their head Juan, just walls, doors and windows, that's the
way buildings go up on Mars, they are all indoors, anyway, so who needs a
roof? I hear that most of the people there now just put up four walls and put
their air mattress and bedding inside. They each have a wire framed sheet
plastic set of drawers to keep their clothing and other belongings in. That is
about all they have for now. We have light weight furniture on board for each
person and couple and air mattresses for all the new employees but it is up to
them to make their own walls. This life style is going to take some getting used
to. I have no idea what you pictured as a clinic but it won't be anything like what
you imagine. I know that some of us in construction will be making Martian
cement blocks and putting up walls for people. We have some plastic sheeting
in the hold that folks will be able to use for windows but so far no one has
figured out how to make doors. So far the best idea has been to make the walls
so you have to enter then turn left and take about three steps before you can
turn right and actually enter the room. Remember there is no need for
protection from the weather which is always perfect and there are no personal
lamps to light a room. Most people just have reading lamps and flash lights to
see things after lights out in the caverns. They turn the lights out every night at
2200 and turn them back on at 0600. Public buildings like the kitchen and your
clinic will have auxiliary lighting that can be turned or off at any hour.” “Where
did you hear all this? Tim.” Classes, I have been going to class every day for
the last ten days. I have been learning a lot about the living conditions that we
will find there.”
July 20, 2107: About 1730 they heard a knock on their door, it was Juan
and Lupe, “You guys ready yet?” Tim and Carla were dressed in their best
civilian clothes, well actually their only civilian clothes, Tim had on his sports
coat, shirt tie and slacks and civilian shoes, Carla was wearing her dress.
These were the clothes they were wearing when they left Earth, was it just two
weeks ago, it seemed like months. Tim said, “You guys shouldn't be doing this,
buying our dinner at those prices.” “Don't give it a thought, Tim, you guys signed
up for this job for the chance to become millionaire's but I was born into money.
Those prices don't even seem high to me, we frequently spent that amount for a
dinner in a good restaurant in L.A..” Juan had made their reservations at the
restaurant and just informed Tim and Carla that they were going to dinner as his
guest the day before.
When they entered through the unmarked door it was like stepping into a
different world. There were waiters in tuxedos and white table cloths. The
head waiter seated them at a table for four to one side of the room. Their
steaks were grilled to perfection and came with all the trimmings. They ate and
talked and shared he two bottles of wine they were entitled to. “I wonder why
they are so tight with the booze on this ship”, asked Tim. “It is probably
because not enough is known about the effects of alcohol consumption in low
gravity. We have a hard enough time standing up and not falling down in
artificial gravity and alcohol could interact with your shots or some of those
potent vitamins we take every day. The alcohol could intensify some vitamins
that are already at maxim safe dosage levels and it could reduce the effects of
other vitamins. There is really so little known that The Company figures it would
be safe enough to have two drinks a week but they don't want to be held liable
in a law suit if anyone suffers ill effects from their shots or vitamins in
combination with the alcohol. I intend to look into the matter in depth in my
spare time once we are on Mars.” “In the meantime what do they have you
doing on this flight, Juan, while the rest of us are attending classes?” “Since I
am the only Dr. on board with a degree in space medicine and since I have
worked in space on several occasions I am teaching classes on low gravity
medicine to the other Dr's.” “I want you as our primary health care provider
when we get to Mars, Juan” said Carla. “Not to be, Carla, I will not have a
family practice on Mars, in fact I have never had a family practice anywhere, my
specialty is Space Medicine which I am now required to convert over to low
gravity medicine. Lupe is my primary and I suggest you make your deal with
her. What I will be doing is taking on cases that are related to our unique
environmental issues.” “OK, then Lupe would you consider being our primary
health care provider?” “I'd love to Carla, I'll sign you up as soon as we arrive
and I begin practice.” That evening Tim enjoyed an excellent USDA prime steak
and Carla opted for a Maine Lobster tail. It was not difficult for them to hit upon
interesting topics for conversation during the meal. They downed their last bit of
wine and called it an evening.
Juan continued to dine at the restaurant as often as he was allowed to
but had different dinner guests on each occasion. The couples would meet
periodically to shoot the breeze and update Juan on what was being taught in
the Mars construction classes. Tim, had learned how to make Mars cement
which was basically just mud made from a certain soil type found in the caverns
mixed with surface sand. They dried it on the surface of the planet, they
seemed to cure better and quicker when exposed to the UV rays on the
surface. The cement blocks were then carried back inside. They where as
hard as concrete and could be used in many ways. Some were used for
building walls to give people the feeling of privacy. Because a man could easily
lift heavier weights on Mars the standard size for cement blocks was the same
length as those made on Earth but twice the width. By using these larger
blocks steel reinforcement was unnecessary for walls up to eight foot. Cement
could be poured indoors but it took it several days to cure. When a floor was
leveled in a cavern it was first leveled with dirt then covered with the blocks, it
made for very attractive floors. It was a standard practice to add color to the
blocks when the cement was being mixed. Blocks were manufactured in eight
standard colors. The different colors served to break up the starkness of the
caverns, that way everyone's house did not look identical to everyone else's
house. They were even using the cement to make furniture. You could form a
chair out of the cement then put inflatable cushions on the seat and the back,it
could be quite comfortable and attractive when using contrasting or
harmonizing colors.. Juan was interested in hearing all the things that Tim was
learning in his daily classes.
Tim, Carla and the rest continued with their daily routine for the next two
months. Carla no longer had to attend classes but was doing some of the food
preparation in the kitchen and still serving and helping with the cleanup. Tim
had finished his course and knew all the people on list 11 pretty well. They all
seemed eager to learn all they could about each other and about the planet that
would be their home. The instructors all seemed friendly and competent. They
were speaking from first hand experience when they talked about living and
working on the planet surface and in the caverns. The instructors liked their
jobs because they earned excellent money and had lots of time off on the return
trips to Earth. Most of them were already too old to be allowed to work on Mars
again. Tim suggested to Carla that maybe they could be instructors on flights
out to Mars after they had finished their stint working there. Carla said “Yeah,
but they would have to hire both of us.”

A Colony On Mars : Chapter 1

2009-03-27T07:07:00.001-07:00

PART I
CHAPTER – Tim and Carla find work
May 28, 2107 : “Hey Honey, look at this ad in the Review Classified, I
don't believe it, we gotta check this out tomorrow morning.” “Don't believe what
you read Tim, you know, if it sounds too good to be true...” “I know Carla, If it
sounds too good to be true it's not true.” “But I think this may be different. The
ad was placed by Mars Colony, Inc. They have been working up there for
several years now and they are hiring, and look at what they are paying!” “Lets
see that ad, WOW”
“WORK ON Mars, That's right, we are now hiring in all categories,
unskilled, skilled and professional. The lowest wage we pay is $15,000.00
monthly to start. Ten year contract, required. All board and room equipment
and uniforms furnished. Must be an English speaking U.S. Citizen, between 25
and 35 years of age, have a clean police record, pass a rigid physical
examination, pass a drug test and have at a minimum a high school diploma.
Bring your birth certificate, shot record, national ID and health card, copies of
any diplomas or degrees and a detailed resume to Room 2277 Hempstead
building between 8:00 AM and 1:00 PM any weekday.”
“We are here about the jobs on Mars, is this for real?” It sure is, just sign
in and have a seat in the waiting room through that door, one of our counselors
will be with you shortly.” There were about twenty others already seated in the
large waiting room. It looked as though there might be quite a wait. A large
table at the entrance was covered with stacks of printed brochures. They each
selected two or three pamphlets, and found two seats together.
The man introduced himself as Hal Bergstrom, he addressed the entire
group. “So either you people want to become Martians or the money brought
you in, either way, you are here. I thought I could thin this crowed out a little
before you go to your interview. As you probably already know Mars has the
potential to support a population of over three hundred million people, but that is
only the potential. Right now there are fewer than three hundred workers on
Mars, their living conditions aren't the best. All but twenty seven of them are
U.S. Government employees, mostly scientists and such. They presently
reside in a cavern that covers about one half square mile.
Back in 2095, almost twelve years ago the Government sent in a work
crew of five hundred men from the Army Corps of Engineers. These workers
took two years to construct the present habitat. When they finished their
project, they left to returned to Earth.
“Once the Corps guys departed the Government people started to arrive.
One of the first projects that they embarked on was mounting the telescope in a
dome that had been constructed by the Army when they were there. This is not
as large and powerful as some telescopes on Earth, or in Earth orbit, but Mars
gets to view area's of the star systems that can not be seen from Earth. On
Mars they have several large dishes mounted on the surface that allow
searches by radio telescope.
There is plenty of water available in the caverns. “Everything else that
they presently have use has been brought from Earth. Electricity is provided by
a generator located in a walled off corner of the cavern. Atmosphere is
manufactured by an apparatus brought from Earth.” Their toilet facilities are in
yet another nearby cavern. They consist of porta potties separated for men and
women. There is a tank of hot and cold water with a dozen showers and wash
basins in each bathroom. The atmosphere has a stench to it, not just in the rest
rooms but everywhere. When you first arrive you will be appalled by it but after
a while you will hardly notice it.
If you are claustrophobic you do not want to take this job. The only way
that a human can go to the surface is clad in a Mars suit, which is similar to a
space suit. They do have plenty of water, underground rivers are plentiful.
There are fish in the stream but you can't eat them they are poisonous. We
really don't even want you touching them until we know more about them.
There is a small video library and each of you will have a personal media
player. That is about all there is to relieve the tedium of daily life.
Our company has had an average of ten employees there for the last five
years, it has taken them that long to prepare, seal and pressurize a small
cavern for the three hundred employees we are now hiring. This new Company
cavern can be reached by a short tunnel from the main cavern. It was just
recently pressurized with atmosphere which made it habitable. We are now
ready to send in work crews. Mars Colony, Inc. has the contract from the
Government for construction of all the additional necessities. Much of your
work will be done in the hostile atmosphere on the surface of the planet
wearing Mars suits. A Mars suit is very cumbersome to work in. We need to
build a sewer plant, install indoor plumbing, with toilets showers, water heaters,
a geothermal electric generation plant and run the electric wiring. In a few
months we want to start tunneling toward the next cavern. Our eventual goal is
a monster cavern located about six miles from the present caverns. You will be
working a eight hour day, six days a week.
This round of hiring, for three hundred workers who will be leaving Earth
on an interplanetary ship in early July of this year. Once you arrive, the only
way you will have to communicate with Earth is by home video or letters that
can be shuttled home whenever a ship from Earth docks. There are presently
about four ships per Earth year. Mars years are twice as long as ours but don't
worry your ten year contract will be for Earth years. Any of you who want an
interview please stay in your seats. If you have any doubts about that lifestyle
please do yourself a favor and leave now.”
Eight people got up and left. Tim and Carla exchanged a long silent look
into each other's eyes and then remained in their chair's. They were then
ushered into what looked like a classroom with desks and terminals. The
instructor in the front waited until they were all seated then the screens in front
of each of them flickered on, an application appeared. After two hours they had
finished the application. Some who had already finished had been ushered out.
“There is always something that you don't think to bring, Carla remarked but I
suspect that I will have time to provide it for them before we leave for Mars.
Carla was presently employed as a short order cook in a chain
restaurant. Tim had finished high school early at seventeen. He had obtained
his degree in engineering from Texas A&M at twenty one. When Tim was a
student at A&M Carla was working as a cook in the cafeteria, that 's how they
met. They were married when Tim graduated. It was a small wedding,
attended only by Carla's family and a few friends from the University.
Tim and Carla had moved to Las Vegas two years before when Tim had
been Laid off from his job as a drilling engineer in Houston, Tim had taken
several construction jobs in the booming Las Vegas building industry just to put
bread on the table but so far had not landed another engineering job. He had
hoped to get employment in the mining industry as an engineer. There weren't
many new wells being drilled in the U.S. anymore and many of the drillers and
engineers were finding other employment. You might say that Tim just hadn't
found himself.
They had the usual amount of personal debt, car payments and credit
card bills but all of their bills and payments were current. They wanted a family
and a home of their own, someday. For the time being they both had to work on
their menial jobs just to make ends meet. The home and the family were
something the future might hold for them.
June 1, 2107 : At their interview hey were given a longer version of the
speech that they had earlier heard from Hal Bergstrom. The woman who
conducted the interview seemed to be bent on convincing them not to take the
job. They were told that if everything on their application checked out and if
they passed their physical examination, and their psych tests, they would be
hired. It was their lucky day. They were both offered jobs, Carla cooking in The
Company mess hall and Tim working on one of the general construction crews.
They would need to prepare a last will and testament and a living will. They
would each need to open a bank account where The Company could deposit
their pay checks. They would each have to have a signature card signed by the
person or firm that they wanted to designate to handle their financial affairs for
them for the next ten years. One nice thing they learned at the interview was
that all money earned while working on Mars was free of all State and Federal
Income tax.
The Psych test for each of them was scheduled on the same day. Tim
and Carla didn't think it would amount to much. They arrived at 7:30 AM on the
third and were sent back to the classroom where they had filled out their
applications. At 8:00 AM the screens on the monitors lit up. They were told to
read the question on the screen select the answer to the question and then click
on next. One at a time they read the questions and selected the best answer.
They were not told how many questions to expect but they did not imagine that
the test would more than 100 questions. There were 250 questions. Most of
the questions were preference questions, very few knowledge questions. After
answering question 250 a message appeared on the screen that thanked them
for taking the test and were told that they were free to leave. Both Tim and
Carla finished just before noon. Carla was done a little ahead of Tim. She just
remained in her seat until she saw that Tim had finished. By the time they left it
was about noon so they went to lunch at a cafeteria across the street from the
building and discussed the test they had just taken while having lunch.
“That was the stupidest test I have ever taken, have you ever taken a
test anything like that when you were attending A&M, Tim? “Nope, that was
completely new to me. I think that even though most of the questions seemed
inane and pointless that Mars Colony, Inc. now has a pretty good idea of how
our mental processes work, how we would be expected to react to any
situation, how tolerant we are of other people, how patient we are and a lot of
other stuff about us that maybe we don't know about ourselves. We are just
going to have to wait them out until the results come back, however long that
takes.”
Before they left the cafeteria Tim's phone rang. He answered and was
told by the girl on the other end of the line that he had done very well on the
test. “You seem to have the exact psychological profile that we are looking for
Tim. By the way, is your wife Carla with you right now? If so please tell here
that she also did very well and fits the profile that we are looking for. You both
passed, congratulations.” “That part of their hiring process was certainly easy
enough,” said Carla. Little did Carla know that more than eighty percent of the
people who took the test had been dropped from consideration for employment.
It wasn't that they were bad people or that weren't intelligent, it was just that
their test results indicated that they would not function well in the environment
that they would be living in on Mars. The Company did not want to go to the
expense of sending people to Mars that would be unhappy with their situation
once they got there.
“My God, Tim do you realize what we are doing, you will be thirty six and
I will be thirty seven before we get back home.” “Well Hon, by the time we get
back this won't seem like home anymore, and late 30's is a great time to retire
and see the world. The way I have it figured we should have over three million
dollars in our account by then.” “Sure, if we last that long, we can return to Earth
any time we want but it will cost us five hundred thousand dollars each to
abrogate our contracts with The Company and an additional one hundred
thousand dollars each for the trip back to Earth, that is what Tony told us at our
interview, remember. No, if we go we will stick it out for the ten years, no matter
how bad it is. After all it couldn't be any worse than going to prison for ten
years, could it?”
The trust department of their bank agreed to handle their financial affairs
and they put a local attorney firm on retainer to periodically check up on the
bank and receive their mail. The firm agreed to forward their important mail at
every opportunity when a ship was leaving. For now they would get their mail
about four times a year, hopefully that would Increase to monthly before their
contract was up.
Mars Colony, Inc. had given each of them a one hundred thousand
dollars in advance pay which they had deposited in the bank, well most of it
anyway. They kept out fifteen thousand for spending money although they had
no idea where they would spend for on Mars. On the last week before their
departure Tim and Carla had paid a final visit to the Attorney Firm that would be
representing them and handling their legal affairs for the next ten years. They
had left their car with an officer at the bank two days before they left for him to
sell, pay off the loan and deposit the rest in their account.
They had visited their families, their friends, their dentist's and their
doctors. Carla had a hard time saying goodbye to her parents and her brother
but Tim only had his father to say goodbye to as his brother had been killed in
Iraq in 2106 and his mother had died of cancer when he was a child. His father
had remarried when Tim was a junior in high school. Tim never cared much for
his stepmother, the feeling was mutual. Tim had an easy time of saying his
goodbye's.
The night before they their friends had thrown them a big going away
party. They were wondering if they could get any sleep at the Earth Orbiter or
on the ship after boarding. They were both a little under the weather.
July 7, 2107: It was already over ninety degrees at 7:30 AM on the
morning of their departure. After check in they made their way to the tarmac
boarding area of the North Las Vegas airport where they were ushered aboard
a Shuttle for their flight to the Earth Orbiter. The Shuttle looked a lot like one of
those little commuter jobs but this was one that could take off from a runway on
Earth, fly through the troposphere, stratosphere, Mesosphere, Thermosphere,
Exosphere and on into space. Shuttle are capable of supersonic speeds but
when they are used as space shuttles they fly at subsonic speeds until they
enter space. At a certain altitude the engines on the Rocket propulsion system
kick in and the jet engines shut down. They can return the same way for a soft
landing on Earth.
From the Earth Orbiter they would board the interplanetary ship that
would carry them to Mars. The ship they were to board was called Mars
Supply Two. The other ship that made the Mars run on a regular basis was
called Mars Supply One. They were told that each ship made two round trips
per year. “Impressive names for one of mankind's greatest achievements, don't
you think, Tim.”
They were able to get a good look at the Mars Supply Two from a port
hole on the Shuttle It loomed much larger than they had expected. Since the
ship had been constructed in space and would never leave space weight was
not a consideration, nor was size. The ship was assume, It was cigar shaped,
at least four hundred yards long and appeared to be about seventy five yards
wide at the beam. It was enormous, They later learned that this would be only
the second voyage to Mars that this vessel had made. Until last year there had
only been The Mars Supply One. This ship was a carbon copy of The Mars
Supply One.
They had a some misgivings about the flight that would take almost two
and a half months, but they were given to understand that the ship would be
very comfortable and spacious. Their time would mostly be taken up by training
and orientation classes so that by the time they arrived at the Mars Orbital
Station they would know about as much as it was possible to know about what
to expect when they actually reached their new home.

A Colony On Mars : Forward

2009-03-27T07:04:00.000-07:00

A Colony on Mars
FORWARD
Based on what information we now have it appears that it might be
possible to place a self sustaining colony of human beings on Mars. All of the
necessities seem to be available. We now know that there is plenty of H20
water available beneath the thick layer of frozen CO2 Carbon Dioxide at the
South Pole. It is assumed that the situation would be the same at the north
pole. There is also good evidence that there is liquid H20 water flowing
beneath the suffice of the planet. The known water at the South Pole alone
would be adequate to cover the entire planet with pure water to a depth of
approximately thirty six ft. So, at worst ample water would be a solvable
problem.
Habitat is a problem because the Martian atmosphere is ninety five
percent Carbon Dioxide, and only 3% nitrogen whereas the atmosphere of
Earth is 78% or so nitrogen, 21% oxygen and less than 1% Carbon Dioxide.
There is a solution to this problem. Recent photo's have shown that below the
surface of Mars there are many large fissures, cavern's if you will. One is
known to be at least three times as wide as the Grand Canyon, three times as
deep and nine times as long. This would not be a little cramped space it would
be about the size of the State of Rode Island. A breathable Earth like
atmosphere can be made with water and nitrates. There would be plenty of
water. Initially smaller more manageable caverns could be used while work
was being performed on larger caverns. Caverns could eventually be
interconnected. One estimate I recently read was that there were caverns
beneath the surface of Mars equal to the size of the Continental United States.
This would be a large habitat indeed.
Gardens could be grown underground using electric grow lights. There
are already new strains of plants being developed on Earth that are far more
efficient at photosynthesis, the process of converting Carbon Dioxide to oxygen.
If sufficient Nitrates are available to the plant from the soil then the plant will
consume Carbon Dioxide and produce a breathable atmosphere for man.
At present the mean temperature on the surface of the planet is fifty five
degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. The warmest temperature ever recorded on
Mars was eighty degrees above zero, Fahrenheit. Mars receives far less
sunshine than the Earth because it is further away from the sun. Twice a year
during the equinox the wind speeds on the planet surface reach two hundred
fifty to four hundred miles per hour. A man left unprotected on the surface
would be dead in under a minute.
Mars is only seventeen percent the size of the Earth. Mars, in many
ways is more comparable to Earth's moon than it is to Earth, except that the
minimum gravity that man can survive comfortably in is 33% and Mars gravity is
thirty five percent. Living in a pressurized cavern in an atmosphere rich in
oxygen, taking the proper vitamins, getting plenty of exercise and spending
some time in artificial gravity of one g, Earths gravity could go a long way in
making Mars more habitable. Mars has no ozone layer that protects the
surface from exposure to extreme radiation. The radiation on the surface of
Mars is deadly.
It has been said that all that is needed for survival is a reliable energy
source. On Mars there are probably no fossil fuels however the frequent
volcanoes indicate that geothermal energy would be plentiful. So much for heat
and electricity.
The Martian soil is known to be extremely rich in iron. So far there is no
information that I could find as to the presence of other minerals but with the
high presence of iron there are bound to be others we just have not found them
yet or reported them yet.
So there you have it everything that man would need to survive is
awaiting him on Mars. The technology is already available all that we lack now
is the resolve and the commitment.
NOTE: No time and date system has been universally accepted for
keeping the time and date on Mars, at least not as of 2108. When and if Mars
is ever colonized a standard will be established. Please go to
http://pweb.jps.net/~tgangale/Mars/faq.htm#day where you can read everything
you ever wanted to know about keeping track of time and dates on Mars. Some
interesting facts are as follows: A Martian Day is 24 hours 39 minutes 35.24409
seconds long, a Martian year is 686.9726 Earth days in length. A Martian Day
is called a Sol.
How does the eccentricity of Mars' orbit affect the seasonal variations?
Earth’s orbit is very nearly circular, and so the four seasons last
approximately the same number of days. The orbit of Mars, however, is a bit
more eccentric (0.0934). In accordance with Kepler’s laws of orbital motion,
Mars travels more slowly in its orbit when it is further from the sun, and more
quickly when it is nearer to the sun. Mars reaches its furthest point from the
sun (called "aphelion") when it is spring in the northern hemisphere. This has
the effect of making spring the longest season (193.30 sols), and summer the
second longest (178.64 sols). Mars reaches its closest point to the sun (called
"perihelion") when it is autumn in the northern hemisphere, and consequently
autumn is the shortest season (142.70 sols), and winter is the second shortest
(153.94 sols). On a calendar containing 24-months of equal duration, spring
lasts seven months, while autumn lasts a little more than five. Summer has a
little more than six months, and winter has a little less. This paragraph was
plagiarized from the above mentioned website. I suppose that if this story is
ever released as a book I will have to get permission to use it or completely
reword it. Perhaps now you will understand that for the purposes of this fiction
story the Author has taken license to have the characters in the story use
Greenwich mean time and the Earth calendar and to say that the scientific
community at the colony maintains and prominently posts the Martian time and
date which is available to anyone planning to work on the surface.
Until the reader reaches PART II of this book he will have no idea of what
the story is going to be about. I would encourage you however to not skip
ahead to part II. If you do not read part I then part II will be meaningless. Part
II begins about two thirds of the way through the book.
This story then will be the author's fictional concept of what might take
place if mankind were to embark on a project to colonize Mars.

A Colony On Mars : Introduction

2009-03-27T07:02:00.000-07:00

ABOUT THIS BOOK
Copyright 2007 by Cliff Roehr, Pahrump Nevada 89048. All rights
reserved. Please Contact the author for permission before using any parts of
this story or making copies.
I, Cliff Roehr authored this book because I enjoy writing.
I had a few copies printed for my friends and family.
If you noticed this book has no ISBN registration number. That means
that it is not a published book. If you would be interested in publishing and
distributing this book please send me email to one of the three email addresses
that follow. At the present time I check all three every day but I may drop one or
two of them in time so it would be best to send your email to all three.
pahrumpsters@gmail.com
pahrumpsters@yahoo.com
pahrumpsters@hotmail.com