1.
Arrivals
The shuttle Simud fell rapidly towards the surface of Mars, its large, rounded bottom still glowing ruddy from the heat of atmospheric entry. Among the passengers packed like sardines in the cabin was Dr. Forest Rivers, age 40. Like the other passengers he was dressed in a pressure suit, though he was not wearing a helmet; his slightly balding head had a short blond ponytail. He watched the viewing screen closely as it showed the easternmost canyon of the Valles Marineris system rolling by them, the northern escarpment sharp and clear just fifteen kilometers below.
“Parachute deployment in three seconds,” announced the pilot. “Here we go.”
They could hear the mortar go off, blowing the drogue chute upward into the shuttle’s supersonic slipstream, then the cord tightened and the shuttle jerked as the chute inflated. Gravity increased noticeably. Some passengers were startled, but Rivers remained unperturbed. Then a few seconds later there was a series of three pops as mortars fired out the main chutes, followed by a wrenching jolt as they inflated against the thin Martian air screaming past the shuttle at nearly two thousand kilometers per hour.
That startled, if not frightened, some of the passengers; simulations never fully captured the reality of landing on Mars. Rivers looked at the screen, which showed their flight profile relative to the Martian surface; it was proceeding nominally. Deceleration felt strong because they were not used to two terrestrial gees of force, after nearly five months of cruising between the planets and experiencing artificial Martian gravity.
They passed several craters on the floor of Aurorae Chaos, or ‘Aurorae Valley’ as the area had once been rechristened by NASA because it sounded better. Second by second the ground grew noticeably closer, especially as the drag of the parachutes eliminated almost all of the shuttle’s forward motion and its trajectory tipped from nearly horizontal to vertical. Then fifty seconds later—though it seems like an eternity—they could hear motors opening five engine ports in the shuttle’s rounded bottom.
“Parachute separation in three,” announced the pilot.
“He doesn’t give us much warning,” said Yoshiyaki Suzuki, a Zen monk strapped into the landing couch next to Rivers.
“No,” replied Rivers, and suddenly they felt the parachute cord separate, causing the shuttle to enter free fall. But just as everyone began to think something was wrong, the shuttle’s five main engines roared alive, blasting out hundred-meter flames of combusted methane and oxygen, and they were pressed back into their couches at nearly two gees once again.
Velocity, 500 meters per second, altitude 10,250 meters. . . Rivers made the grim calculation that if something went wrong, they’d crash in less than twenty seconds. But every second the shuttle was moving slower by twenty meters per second and the time of impact was delayed. The ground seemed to race upward at them, but the shuttle stayed on the landing profile projected on the screen, so Forest was unperturbed. Aurorae Outpost, the collection of verdant bubbles and buildings that was their destination, moved into view in the upper right corner of the screen.
The deceleration began to cut back, the roar of the rockets gradually weakening. They were only hundreds of meters above the surface now and dropping toward it at tens of meters per second. The engines continued to throttle back, then shut off entirely. The vehicle bounced a bit as its five landing legs touched down.
“Welcome to Mars,” announced the pilot. The eighteen passengers all began to applaud spontaneously.
“We made it,” said Yoshiyaki.
“Indeed; hundreds of millions of kilometers.” Forest extended his hand to Yoshi and they shook. Then they began to unstrap themselves and stand in the circular aisle along the outer edge of the cabin. Passengers who had been wearing helmets took them off. Forest’s chief assistant, Victor MacLeod, climbed down from the deceleration couch located above him.
“Quite a ride,” he said.
“Really. I hadn’t realized it was so bumpy.”
“The simulation doesn’t give you a feel for that, and Swift shuttle’s ride is much smoother,” observed MacLeod, referring to the reusable shuttles that hauled people and goods to low Earth orbit.
There was a clank and they all looked toward the airlock. A mobilhab was already docking to the shuttle. Passengers began to pull luggage out of compartments under the lower couches and hand it to their owners. Forest reached down under his and pulled out the suitcases for himself and Victor.
They had to be patient; egress was not a routine and quick matter, like on a jet plane. The docking tube had to be latched into place very carefully and it always leaked a little. But in about five minutes the tube was in place and inflated, and the airlock door suddenly opened inward. A figure in a pressure suit entered and waved; the passengers cheered and began to file out.
The tube was just a meter long and wide enough for one person at a time to pass. The eighteen of them filed through and entered the mobilhab, a vehicle 2.5 meters wide and seven meters long. Some went up the tiny spiral staircase to the upper level for the better view; the others sat on the ground level.
“Welcome, welcome,” exclaimed the driver. “I am Lal Shankaraman, a geologist here at Aurorae and Treasurer of the Borough Council, so I am conveying the greetings of the Council and the residents.”
“Are your passenger seats in front taken?” asked Forest.
“No, not yet.”
“Good. Yoshi, come sit up front.”
The monk nodded and stepped forward. “Are you Yoshiyaki Suzuki?”
“That is correct. I am the head of the monastery.”
“Marvelous. Welcome. And you’re Dr. Forest Rivers, right?”
“Yes, President of the Green World Community.”
“Green World? I thought it was the Green Earth Community.”
“It was, but we’re on Mars now, right?”
Lal laughed. “Yes, exactly.” He looked at the passengers. “That’s everyone? Let’s get the airlock closed.” He stepped back from the drivers seat and closed the egress hatch in the mobilhab’s driver’s side, latching it tightly. Then he returned to the driver’s seat and watched a television screen that showed a worker detaching the tube from the shuttle and retracting it back into the side of the mobilhab. He gave the all clear signal and Lal heard him confirm over the radio. Lal acknowledged and began to drive forward.
“So, that’s Layercake Mesa?” asked Forest, noting a large flat-topped rise several kilometers in front to them.
“Yes. You landed on pad six; it’s seven kilometers from the outpost, and south of the Layercake Mesa and Boat Rock. The Outpost is north of Boat Rock. Hold on a second.” He stopped the mobilhab and looked both ways. “This is the sunwing runway. I know we don’t have takeoffs and landings scheduled this sol, but it’s regulation; we always stop and look both ways.”
“Prudent,” said Yoshi.
They continued forward along a nicely cleared dirt road. The landscape was flattish and littered with small rocks and occasional dust drifts, but as they moved northward it became more rolling and rockier, with occasional boulders. Lal pointed out a hundred-meter crater nearby that was the source of the ejected rocks. Looming over the landscape, slightly hazy in the dusty air, was the north escarpment, a wall of rock that rent the horizon and blocked the lower part of the sky. Their eyes were constantly drawn toward it until they approached Boat Rock and Layercake Mesa and those smaller, closer rises crowded out the escarpment. Both were studded with wind turbines on top that lazily rotated in a slight early morning breeze.
The road headed straight toward “the Notch” between the two buttes and passed between them. The road turned right and they approached the outpost from the west. Everyone began to watch very closely. Lal pointed. “That’s Bangalore; it’s a B-75, a dome 75 meters in diameter. The newest of our residential domes. I suspect many of you have flats there. It’s followed by Columbia, an older residential B-60, then Colorado, then Huron, a B-50. Behind them are Kauai, Dakota, and Shenandoah. East of Huron are our original two B-40s, Riviera and Yalta, with Shikuku and Catalina north of them. Yalta’s our commercial center and the cafeteria’s there; Riviera’s the administrative center and Catalina has our school, university, and hospital.”
“And the agricultural domes are north of the residential ones,” added Forest.
“Yes, Caribbean and Missouri, our huge B-160s, Oregon, a B-60, and Cochabamba, a B-75 residential,” replied Lal. “We’re already clearing the ground for two more B-160s. It’s getting confusing to keep track of all the names.”
Yoshi pointed. “I see the western sides of the domes are still covered; is that for insulation?”
“Yes, the sun’s low in the east, so the western sides of the domes don’t have to be open. The insulating blanket is silvered as well and reflects sunlight downward onto the plants and buildings; that helps make up for the lower level of insolation here on Mars.”
Lal slowed the mobilhab, then turned left to head for Aurorae’s Arrival Hall. He slowed the vehicle to squeeze it carefully into a vehicle airlock; it barely fit. The door closed behind them and latched tightly into place, then the airlock pressurized. A minute later the inner door opened and Lal drove the mobilhab into the arrival hall.
“Here we are; welcome, everyone, to Aurorae Outpost! As you file out, watch for your buddy, who should be waiting to greet you. He or she will escort you to your flat and answer any questions you have. You have the morning free. Lunch at the patio starts at 11 a.m. This afternoon you have an orientation at Mariner Institute of Technology in Catalina. Thanks, everyone.” Then Lal rose and opened the hatch.
Forest and Yoshi, seated near the hatch, were among the first to step out. Shinji Nagatami was there to greet Yoshi and the other Zen monks on the flight, but Yoshi turned to Forest first. “My friend, enjoy the morning, take your time, and don’t alienate anyone.”
Forest smiled. “Do I alienate people? Don’t worry; I plan to talk to Elliott.”
“Do you have an appointment? I made one.”
“Well, I didn’t.” He smiled.
“Good luck.” Yoshi turned and walked over to Shinji.
Forest looked for Kent Bytown, the “buddy” for him, Victor, and their two companions on the flight. Bytown, a fellow Canadian, waved. The four of them approached him.
“Welcome to Mars,” he said. “Dr. Rivers, right? Welcome.” He shook hands with Rivers, then shook with the other three, identifying them by name each time.
“You’ve done your homework, Mr. Bytown,” said Rivers.
“Thank you; I always try to know the faces of the people I greet. I hope you had a good flight?”
“Not bad,” replied Rivers. “Rather crowded. We had some interesting animal species on board as well; wild turkeys, pheasants, quail, even raccoons I think!”
“Yes, for bioarchive. I hear they packed more people into the space this time. Don’t worry, we have a lot more space per person here. I’ll take all of you straight to Bangalore, where your group has its space. As you probably know, the Green Earth Community has six cylinders in that biome for living and working. We’re looking forward to having you join us here.”
“Thank you, though I suppose you know that we have land in Aram Crater; that’ll be our destination pretty soon.”
“So I heard. I’ve been through Aram twice and even have done some geology there; it’s a very significant place, geologically. It’s a good choice.”
“Thank you. I didn’t know you were a geologist; I thought you were in charge of security.”
“Not just security; all public safety, including management of the outpost’s environment. But everyone here has geology experience because all of us get cabin fever at one time or another and go out on an expedition. Most of us try to go out at least a few weeks a year. Some even use up their vacation time that way.” He pointed. “Shall we start?”
“Sure,” said Forest. Kent led them out the north side door into a long east-west tunnel, five meters wide and high.
“This is often called Main Street South,” noted Kent. “It starts at Yalta and runs all the way to Bangalore. Main Street North is about 100 meters to the north and parallel, but it isn’t complete yet. In a few more years we’ll have to start automated bus service to get people around; the outpost is already 325 meters long.”
“Excuse me,” said Forest, interrupting. He pointed to a side tunnel. “This is the passageway to Riviera, right?”
“Ah, yes,” replied Kent.
“I’ll join you later in Bangalore, if you don’t mind; I have some business here.”
“Well, I suppose; you won’t get lost?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve explored this place a hundred times in virtual reality, I know my way around.” Forest handed Kent his luggage. “Can you get this to my flat?”
“Sure, no problem.” But Kent was startled by the request.
Forest headed up the side tunnel and passed through the airlock at the end. It took him straight into the biome’s south building; he walked across it and out the revolving doors into blinding sunlight and semitropical vegetation. After months of confinement in a space vehicle, the change came as a shock and he stopped for a minute to savor the beauty. Riviera Biome was beautiful, also; the plantings were over a decade old and trees mature. Forest was charmed.
But he was not to be deterred. He walked across the “yard,” as the space between the buildings was called, and into the North Building, then up the spiral ramp to the top. Commissioner Will Elliott’s office was a rooftop suite set in the midst of vegetable gardens, with gardens on its roof as well. His door was open; there was no need for security, as there would be on Earth. Forest stood outside and knocked.
Elliott, 54, was seated at his desk opposite the door. He was a man of average height and build, with light tan skin and rapidly graying hair that still bore a trace of the original black color it once had. He looked up and did not at first recognize the figure in the doorway. “Dr. Rivers, I presume?” he finally said.
“Correct, Mr. Commissioner.”
“I apologize if it took me a minute to recognize you. My office is relatively dark and you are silhouetted against the bright sky outside. Please come in and sit down. Good sol and welcome to Mars.”
“Thank you.” Forest stepped in as Will rose and gestured to a round table near the door.
“Tea or coffee?”
“Oh, how kind of you. Tea, please.”
Will nodded and stopped at a hot plate, where he poured two cups of steaming tea from a slowly-steeping pot. “It’s mint tea; that’s Martian standard, you know,” he said. “Maybe the Green Earth Community will become our source of real tea. For some reason we haven’t devoted resources to that species yet.”
He carried the two cups over and sat opposite to Rivers. “Your shuttle landed less than an hour ago. You got settled quite fast.”
“I’m not settled yet; I saw Riviera Biome and thought I’d come by. We never were able to talk when I was on Earth.”
“No, we weren’t. It is difficult to get to know and work closely with a stranger by videomail or email. You really have to spend a lot of time with them; for example, every opposition I have all the Commission’s heads of staff meet in a day-long open channel conference, and in that spontaneous, long gathering we get some sense of each others’ personalities, but otherwise it’s difficult. So I have long found that it is better to leave most face to face meetings and negotiations to staffers on Earth; the communication is more effective. But now you’re here and we can indeed meet face to face.”
“And I appreciate the opportunity. I’ve found communication even face to face with your terrestrial representatives to be difficult.”
“And vice versa. There are what one could call cultural or ideological differences to overcome. I’m not sure anyone is even aware of all the differences. Would you say that that was a factor?”
“Perhaps that’s one way of putting it.”
“Dr. Rivers, why don’t you tell me what your group wants out of a settlement on Mars. I’d be fascinated to hear, and maybe I can help.”
Forest was startled by the suggestion. “Alright. The Green World Community—note that we’ve changed our name—is dedicated to understanding Nature and living in harmony with it. For us, the word ‘Nature’ starts with a capital letter, you might say, because Nature is as close to God as we can get. We stress this life over the next; the Community believes in reincarnation. We all are part of Nature and we all recycle, you might say, both the body and the soul. Furthermore, not only are we part of Nature, we are its brains, its mind, its consciousness, so we have a responsibility to understand, respect, nurture, and guide. I put the four obligations in this order intentionally; ‘understand’ means we must use science, ‘respect’ means we must behave ethically toward nature and each other, ‘nurture’ means we must love, and ‘guide’ means we must act responsibly. This philosophy is becoming increasingly popular in Canada, North America, and now all over Earth as well; our membership rolls have been growing fast for the last five years, and especially the last two years. Our original community in British Columbia has been duplicated in Tennessee, Nova Scotia, New Mexico, and now southern Spain. Aram will actually be community number six.”
“Though it was the second one planned, right?”
“Yes and no. When we announced the plans to send 25 people to Mars, with more to follow later, we got tremendous publicity and an influx of members. Two of those communities had already been contemplated, but not actualized until the membership for them materialized. We also have ‘lay members,’ that is, people who do not move into one of our communities. They visit and make retreats and are often assigned honorary membership to the existing communities. They also donate funds, which have been tremendously helpful in enabling our expansion.”
“I can imagine. No doubt, you have heard from many of my people how we would immensely prefer it if your community settled here at Aurorae. Aram is almost a thousand kilometers from here; rescue and emergency support services will not be easy or cheap to provide. There is excellent land west of here and much of it is low in salinity and in poisonous rare elements like selenium. There are also evaporite deposits, just like in Aram. Finally, we can build a better Marsian society if we don’t atomize into little subcultures and communities. We need to be in the position to dialogue amongst ourselves.”
“I appreciate your vision, Dr. Elliott, but we are not ‘melting pot’ people; Canadians in general have long favored the ‘salad bowl’ approach. We—”
“You misunderstand me, Dr. Rivers. I’m talking about a salad bowl as well. What I’m trying to avoid is every vegetable in its own bowl; that’s not a salad at all!”
Forest raised his hand. “We’re in favor of a salad as well. We want our ideas to compete with those of others. Don’t worry; my people will be visiting here and staying for periods of time, and we hope you and your crew will visit Aram. We have a unique vision of how to treat ‘Father Nature,’ as Mars has often been called by your own residents. We want to anchor terrestrial life in the very ground of this world; we plan to build lots and lots of biomes, as many as we can. Yet we also favor a ‘red Mars,’ one un-terraformed outside the domes; we favor respect of Father Nature by fertilizing him in pockets with the verdancy and full diversity of Mother Nature. We look forward to learning, understanding, feeling, and respecting Father Nature. In a sense, ‘He’ is the complementary principle to the ‘She’ of Earth.”
Will wasn’t sure what to make of that. “I understand from Pete Theodoulos that your community has inquired about purchasing its own caravel. Are you contemplating a major migration to Mars?”
“Not of the majority of our members, but we do anticipate bringing many more people here in the upcoming decades; hundreds at least, maybe thousands, depending on how fast the price drops. But Mars isn’t our only interest, Dr. Elliott. We’d love to find a near-earth asteroid whose orbit allows easy visits to Earth and Mars and whose composition has both water and precious metals. If it were, say, one or two hundred meters in diameter we’d even consider throwing a dome around it—with your B-160s this is just about possible already—hollowing out a cave inside to place a caravel for housing, and terraforming its surface. The Green World Community could have the first independent world beyond Earth.”
Will’s eyebrows went up. “An interesting idea to contemplate. Of course, any such colony would be immensely expensive, even if you could mine and export tonnes of platinum and iridium.”
“I know, that’s why we’re diversifying our stock portfolio and investing it as safely but aggressively as we can. We hope to minimize our losses. We don’t expect Aram to make a profit.”
“How long will you stay here on Mars?”
Forest considered. “I don’t know. Maybe just two years, maybe more. We’ll see how everything goes here and on Earth. Now, Dr. Elliott, I understand that the B-160 we ordered from Aurorae can’t be ready for at least six months. Is there anything we can do to decrease that time period? Because it’s simply too long. I don’t want us to have to hang around here all that time.”
“I can appreciate that, but we can only make them so fast, and it seems like everyone wants one. I gather the discussions about temporary work around here have been incomplete. There are many tasks your people can do, and we’ll pay them standard wages. Agriculture is an obvious example; your people have immense experience in farming. Since the equipment you’re getting is similar to the equipment we already have and the procedures are the same, six months will give your people a lot of training in an environment where a mistake won’t be fatal. So the delay has very important advantages, I think.”
Forest scowled. “Well, perhaps, but I really don’t appreciate the delay; indeed, it looks intentional.”
Will shrugged. “It isn’t, and it really is hard to avoid. Mars had 364 people until this sol; in another month it’ll have 627. We have never had such an enormous, complicated expansion before. We have had to double our horticultural area in a two-year period. We have to double housing and work space as well, and as you know, construction on Mars is complicated; we have to lay concrete foundations in Martian conditions and construct airtight structures.”
“Well, you don’t need to double your horticultural and housing spaces, because we plan to build our own. We’re just asking for the materials that are needed to house and feed us so we can do the work ourselves. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“Sure, but a B-160 feeds 100 people and you only have 24. The other 76 are staying here at Aurorae. So the B-160 is needed here, and you need an extra B-160 that will primarily provide future expansion.”
“Well, suit yourself.” Forest raised his cup and drained it. “Tea cools off fast here; but then, I guess it starts with a lower boiling point. It’s good to meet you, Dr. Elliott. I’m sure we’ll have more opportunities to talk.” He extended his hand and they shook again. Then Dr. Rivers stepped out of the office. Will watched him go and wondered what sort of trouble to expect.
-----------------------------------
The three habitation modules of Lufthansa Space Express hit the upper atmosphere of Mars at 21,000 kilometers per hour and streaked across the planet’s predawn sky. Inside the craft, forty-eight passengers and three crew were strapped into acceleration couches, enduring up to two gees of deceleration as the spacecraft dipped to within twenty kilometers of the planet’s surface. In a minute and a half the vehicle rubbed off over 3,000 kilometers per hour, rising out of the atmosphere and into an elongated orbit around Mars.
Within hours the three vehicles were closing on Embarcadero, Mars’s interplanetary transit station. Sandra Smith, age 27, soon noticed the collection of vehicles and structures through her room’s porthole. She called over her husband, Henry, 28, to see, and he went to find their friends; six of the twelve Mormons on the flight were in their hab. The three young couples crowded into the room and took turns looking out the porthole.
“So, that’s the ‘Spirit of Mars,’” exclaimed Sandra.
“Mars’s Statue of Liberty,” agreed Henry. “I gather they just inflated it a month or so ago. They had to rush to have it ready for the arrivals.”
“Is it male or female? I can’t tell,” commented Bruce Cowdrey.
“It’s ambiguous,” agreed Henry. “Intentionally, I think. With a rocket flame under his or her feet and arms raised in welcome. It’s pretty impressive.”
“Especially as we get closer,” added Anne Morris. “It’s eighty meters high. But I’m amazed how many things are at Embarcadero; I count a dozen modules.”
“Most of it is Columbus 10,” replied Henry. He pointed. “That big, round, flying saucer is the caravel Intrepid. It has two axial modules attached to it with four annexes each. That complex flew 196 people here; twice the number ever flown here before. The second axial module is docked to Embarcadero, which has four more annexes. Then the two American Spaceways annexes are floating over there.”
“I thought the annexes were being flown to the surface to serve as housing?” asked Sandra, puzzled.
“Those are probably just the shells,” replied Henry. He tapped the wall next to him. “These things are quadruple thick; three annexes inside each other, each airtight, with a meteoroid shield on the outside. Probably the only thing left is the meteoroid shield.”
“It’ll take six months to fly all the annex bubbles down, though,” added Bruce. “This columbiad involved so many people and so much cargo, the transportation system is stretched.”
“What’s that over there?” asked Sandra. “It looks like another caravel.”
“It probably is,” replied Bruce. “The caravel Courageous is supposed to be finished enough to fly back to Earth via Venus with Columbus 10. They leave in two or three weeks, I think. The returning passengers will finish the interior during the flight.”
“Columbus 11 flew over 300 people here.” Sandra whistled. “This place is taking off.”
“That’s why we’re here,” said Henry. “The Lord’s work and business opportunities.”
“The Lord’s work is going pretty slow, though,” said Bruce. “This is not a very receptive population.”
“Not yet; keep making friends,” replied Henry. “These are remarkable, intelligent people. And even one new member will energize the folks on Earth.”
“I just hope our businesses can be accepted,” added Alistair Morris. “We’re ‘parachuting’ into a completely formed society. Establishing businesses won’t be easy, either.”
“We’ve got a great support team, so don’t worry,” replied Henry. “It’ll all work out just fine. Just you see.”
© 2005 Robert H. Stockman
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