2.
Welcomes
The spaceport at Aurorae Outpost was busy every sol of April 2040. Columbus 10 arrived on April Fool’s Sol with 196 people; American Spacelines flew 24 more to Mars on April 8; and Lufthansa aerobraked with 48 more on April 28. Mars had nine reusable shuttles, each capable of flying eighteen people to the surface, and every sol a different shuttle either took off or landed, so literally the entire month was consumed by flights to deorbit the newly arrived settlers. Nearly every landing brought down a tough, airtight “annex,” an inflatable habitat that had transported twelve people to Mars and that had been emptied of all furniture and fixtures at Embarcadero, deflated, and compressed to fit in the shuttle’s cargo hold. Consumables were latched in place everywhere they could be stored, crowding the people but maximizing use of the shuttle’s interior volume. Every flight back up to Embarcadero from Aurorae Outpost was full as well, transporting cargo destined for Earth, Earth orbit, or the moon: gold, platinum group metals, nitrogen destined for lunar agriculture or manufacturing, argon for ion propellant, Martian beef for tourist hotels in low Earth orbit, copper, deuterium, fossiliferous Mars rocks for science stores, and light manufactures. A few people returning to Earth flew up during the last few sols of the month; a total of thirty people would be flying back to Earth via Venus, including a dozen tourist-workers who arrived on April first to spend the entire month touring the Red Planet under the supervision of geologists. They would be supervising a collection of fifteen annexes that would transport cargo, plus two caravels, one only partially complete but habitable. The seventeen vehicles would fly back to Earth in a caravan that would take ten sols to launch and several sols to aerobrake into Earth orbit at the other end. Three shuttles, returning to Earth for servicing, would serve as tugs in case crew needed to travel to any of the unstaffed vehicles in transit.
The last group of arrivals landed on Mars on April 30; geologists, they had spent two weeks exploring Phobos and a week on Deimos, mostly to hone their skills and prepare for future asteroid missions. Among them was Sebastian Langlais, 63, the former head of Columbus 2, who had returned to Mars in his retirement. As the mobilhab carrying him and a dozen other arrivals approached the outpost’s arrival hall, he stared in amazement at all the domes and buildings. When the vehicle passed through the airlock and entered the outpost he felt a rising tide of excitement.
The door opened and they all began to step out. Sebastian searched the crowd for his son Helmut, 33, and at first didn’t recognize him. He had changed a lot in seven years.
“Oh, there you are!” he said.
“Dad!” exclaimed Helmut, a shout that could be heard across the room in spite of the din of the crowd and the thin air. He pushed through to his father and they embraced.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, dad.”
“So are you. I can’t believe how much of you’ve changed and matured. . . it’s quite something.” Tears streamed down Sebastian’s cheeks.
“Come on, Clara’s waiting with Charlie. Let me grab your stuff.” Helmut reached down to take his father’s big, bulky suitcase. They pushed through the crowd to the rear, where Clara stood holding their shy seventeen-month old son.
“Clara, it’s good to meet you face to face at last.” Sebastian embraced his daughter in law, then kissed her. He took his grandson. “This is your grandpa, Charlie; how are you?”
The little boy burst out into tears. Sebastian handed him back to Clara.
“He’s going through a phase of adjusting to strangers,” explained Clara.
“Oh, that’s alright. He doesn’t know me yet, that’s all.”
“Welcome to Aurorae; or maybe I should say back to Aurorae,” said Clara.
“Thanks. It’s really so different, it’s just about unrecognizable. We had no biomes back then; just three habitats and some greenhouses. In the middle of the mission we built the Geology Building and it was our first construction of native materials. None of this.” Sebastian looked around the large room, which was designed for vehicles to drive right inside for loading, unloading, and maintenance.
“You must have some sense of the place, though, with all the video,” exclaimed Helmut.
“Some, of course. I’ve done virtual reality walkthroughs a few times. But as good as that technology is, it isn’t the same thing as reality. I’ve been ‘in’ this room several times virtually, and it doesn’t look the same. And I didn’t recognize you at first, Helmut; the video image just isn’t the same. Your face has filled out.”
“I’ve put on ten kilos, I’m afraid.”
“I’m surprised that’s okay up here.”
“Well, we’ve all had creeping waistlines in the last few years,” replied Clara. “There’s more sugar in our diet now, and a bigger variety at all meals, not just nights and weekends.”
“How was the flight?” asked Helmut, even though he had asked his father that question by video before.
“Not bad. It was really special to see Deimos again; I was the first human to set foot there. I got to give a reminiscence one night to the crew. And I had never made it to Phobos on Columbus 2, so it was great to visit it. But flying over either moon, one is struck by the absence of areas lacking footprints.”
Helmut nodded vigorously. “Amazing, isn’t it? Someone has stepped on literally every hectare of both moons.”
“It’s a bit sad, but inevitable,” agreed Sebastian. “So, I have a flat near you all.”
“The next cylinder over,” agreed Helmut. “Seconds away, but still next door.”
“That should work well. I don’t want to interfere.”
“Dad, we want you as part of the family, don’t worry,” said Clara. “Charlie will be real lucky, not many kids up here have grandparents.”
“Actually, he’s the only one!” said Helmut. “And God willing, if Kristoff makes it here on Columbus 11, he’ll have an uncle here as well!”
“It’s pretty likely, I think. His skills are strong,” said Sebastian. He looked up and saw Will Elliott approaching. He stared at his old friend. “Now there’s a sight for sore eyes.”
“Sebastian, good sol and welcome to Mars.”
“Good sol to you, my old friend.”
Will came over and embraced Sebastian. “It’s been sixteen years.”
“We’re older and wiser. You look pretty good.”
“I have two soft plastic lenses in my eyes, but otherwise I’m intact,” replied Will. “You’re doing pretty well, too.”
“I dye my hair,” confesses Sebastian. “Otherwise it’s all white. But my heart’s doing well, and I’ve had nothing cut out yet.”
“It’s all too common, isn’t it? Professional hazards. But it must be great to be with Helmut and his family.”
“Oh, it’s marvelous.” Sebastian looked at Helmut, Clara, and Charlie, with a beaming smile. “I guess I get my citizenship in my third country; Germany, then the U.S., and now Mars.”
“We don’t have citizenship yet, just residency,” replied Helmut. “But it feels like citizenship.”
“We’re so isolated,” added Will. “I’m pretty sure with Columbus 12 we’ll start fast round trip flights; the propulsion technology appears to be maturing fast enough. We may all live to see the sol when this place is an official nation. I just wanted to stop by fast, Sebastian, and welcome you. Get settled and take your time; we can talk in a few sols.”
“That would be good. I want to settle in, fill my wallet with some redbacks, overcome my culture shock, and get to know my grandson.”
“Yes, take some time. Good luck finding the redbacks; the ATM machine at Silvio’s store is always empty because everyone’s thrilled to be able to get them. We’ll talk about assignments in a few sols. I have an idea.” Will reached out and they shook hands. Then he headed across the room to welcome someone else, while Sebastian and his family headed for Cylinder 6, Flat 2B, Columbia Biome.
-------------------------------
The next sol, May 1st, Mars had as many people as it would have for over a year: 632, including those in orbit and located at the outposts of Aurorae, Cassini, Dawes, Meridiani, and Thymiamata. Over 500 of them were at Aurorae and they gathered that evening to attend the gala welcoming dinner held every columbiad after the arrivals had all landed. Yalta Biome was packed with tables and chairs filling the eastern and western courts and the “yard” between its north and south buildings; it barely accommodated everyone. The crowd was reminded of the location of the biome’s four exits in case of emergency. The event was broadcast to the other outposts, to Embarcadero, and to similar gatherings in Houston, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, Beijing, New Delhi, and Brasilia; the terrestrial locations held offices of the Mars Commission and among its employees were many who aspired to fly to Mars on Columbus 11, due to arrive in May and June 2042. It was the first time meals were served simultaneously at the terrestrial locations.
“This is really incredible,” said Madhu Gupta-Anderson, looking around Yalta. “There’s never been a crowd in here like this! It’s so tight there’s no room for the food lines!”
“It’s amazing,” agreed her husband, Roger Anderson. “It’s also clear that Yalta won’t be large enough to feed everyone any more. If Aurorae gets any bigger, we’ll have to have two places to eat, or one much larger cafeteria.”
“We can’t continue eating in one place forever,” replied Érico Lopes. “But who would have thought the sol would come so fast! I remember when we finished Yalta and first moved in.”
“Just a decade ago,” agreed Carmen Lopes. “I never thought we’d outgrow it.”
“Still, looking at the crowd, I have to confess to some uneasiness,” said Érico. “It’s the most nationally diverse group we’ve ever had.”
“Who would have thought that travel to Mars would have gotten cheap enough for the Gambia to send two people,” agreed Roger. “Not to mention Bolivia, Jamaica, Paraguay, Swaziland, Botswana, Cameroon, Tanzania, Tunisia, Jordan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Burma, Bangladesh. . . it’s really amazing.”
“I must confess, though, I am worried about the religious diversity that the cheap tickets has allowed.” Érico paused, then added. “No offense meant, Father.”
“Oh, none taken,” replied Father Greg, who was wearing his Catholic priest’s collar that night, partly because he enjoyed the surprise when people saw a Catholic priest with his wife and two children, aged two and four respectively. “I must confess to some hesitation as well. The groups that arrived were the ones with the desire for publicity, notoriety, or the ones with strongly held views. This is to be expected, but it certainly will make interfaith devotions interesting, and dialogue complicated.”
“Will we be including everyone?” asked Roger. “Like the Universal Church of Jesus Christ the Creator, and the Green World Community?”
“The Universal Church has so far declined our invitations on the grounds that praying with others could compromise the integrity of the true church,” replied Greg. “I think in a few months they’ll come around, though. The Mormons are delighted to be involved. The Zen monks will offer prayers and chants; they were very gracious. The Green World Community, interestingly enough, seems willing to view itself as a religion, sort of, and not just as a communally living society, and they’ve offered readings from Forest Rivers’ ‘Green Book.’ It’ll be the first time we’ll be reading something roughly equivalent to scripture when the author is present!” Greg laughed, amused by the situation.
Roger was less amused. “I think it’s a bit crazy, myself.”
Greg shrugged. “Roger, our interfaith organization has to accept something as a religion if the followers feel that is what it is, unless the organization is engaged in unethical behavior. The Green World Community is an ethical group. I doubt the interfaith group can expect some sort of commonly accepted definition of divine revelation from its steering committee, or a definition of what is a religion and what isn’t.”
“I know,” growled Roger, who was one of Mars’s leading evangelicals.
“I’d worry more about the ethical behavior of the Mormon group,” replied Érico. “Yestersol I stopped to talk to Bruce Cowdrey for a few minutes and he was so sweet and nice to me, I felt love bombed. And then when we talked about their plans, he said they’re going into agriculture and sales and they plan to open a store next week. So Silvio’s can expect competition.”
“Where will they open it?” asked Madhu, looking around.
“Not in here, obviously,” replied Érico. “That means the commercial zoning that restricts businesses to this biome will have to be amended.”
“Hum, that’s complicated,” added Carmen. “The Mormons don’t worry me much; I think we can handle them. But the Universal Church people are not well educated and have very narrow views about the Bible. I was talking to one of them two sols ago and she was quick to bring the subject around to biblical prophecy, as if anyone takes that seriously!” She chuckled. “Oh, no offense again, Father.”
“That’s okay.”
“I don’t mind them though,” replied John Hunter, their Lakota Indian geochemist, who sat at the end of the table with his Maori wife and their two children. “I guess I’m used to that sort of person, growing up.”
“So far, only the Zen monks appear to be universally cool,” added Father Greg. “That sounds like a trivialization, but I mean it sincerely; they really are nice people and easy to talk to, when they understand your English at least.”
“And what about the Shi’is?” asked Érico, turning his face toward a table nearby where sixteen Iranians sat. A few of the women wore head scarves; the rest had adopted the new Martian fashion of wearing large hats that disguised radiation shields, and they invariably had their hair tucked underneath them. Their clothing was modest, but again was covered with anti-radiation layers as well. Attractively colored sleeves and pant legs modestly covered their extremities.
“I think they’ll be okay,” replied Greg. “They’re making an effort to fit in, and Ruhullah is spending a lot of time with them to help them adapt. They’re anxious to participate in interfaith activities.”
“It’s important to note that these five groups have no more in common with each other than with the rest of us,” said Anna Racan, Greg’s wife and a former nun. “The Green World Community is the biggest one, with twenty members. The Catholic parish here has seventy registered members. The Protestant groups together have fifty. Don’t count them up and say we’re getting sixty religious people. Columbus 10 brought more mainstream Catholics and Protestants than that.”
“And a lot of young people,” added Greg. “That’s what’s struck me about the arrivals; they’re young and enthusiastic. They graduated from university, came to Houston or another city with a major Commission center, worked for us and got their Master’s degree over four years, then applied to fly here. So here they are, 26 to 30 years old, bright, educated, often married and ready to start a family; what a marvelous group to have come here.”
“And this flight included two older families with children,” added John. “That amazes me.”
“The systems reduce the radiation exposure adequately now,” replied Érico. “It’s good to have the interplanetary routes open to children over age 14. I think we’ll approve lower age limits in the future, too.”
Will Elliott approached the table. “How are all of you?” he said. He looked at the crowd. “Isn’t this something. This biome is actually getting stuffy. The crowd’s putting out 50 kilowatts of heat and consuming twenty kilograms of oxygen an hour in here.”
“Thank God Yalta has a half tonne of oxygen!” replied Érico. “This is a strain on our system, though.”
“Environmental Control has the connections to Catalina and Cochabamba biomes wide open and strong fans circulating air back and forth, and all the CO2 scrubbers are working overtime. They’ll mist this place at 3 a.m., too, to wash smells from the air. That’ll handle the strain. But I look around at the diversity in here and I am just amazed. Mars is now a real cross-section of humanity.”
“Let’s just hope we can manage our social relations,” said Érico.
“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll do fine,” replied Will. “This makes me feel very optimistic. But I’ve got to get on the stage to start the program. Talk to you all later.” Will headed across the floor, squeezing between the tables, stopping to chat with friends and new arrivals, feeling more and more charged up. At one point he stopped to talk to Yoshiyaki Suzuki, who was sitting with the rest of the Zen monks. “I checked with Alexandra. You did indeed get in your request for a dome before everyone else, including our own environmental management people. So the monastery will get the next one. It’ll be ready in June.”
“Remember, we want it without the floor, and we need extra plastic for the exterior pressure skirt.”
“I know, and a hundred tonnes of water. There’s no guarantee this idea will work. You may find your dome leaking downward so much that it just isn’t worth the effort.”
“Perhaps, but this will allow us to excavate housing downward and outward. It gives us nearly infinite possibilities in a relatively small space. And all the computer models, I understand, indicate that freezing the ground underneath the dome should reduce oxygen loss to ten kilograms per sol or less. We can make that much oxygen with our CO2 reducing unit.”
“True.” Will sighed. “I wish you’d build the monastery down here, attached to the outpost. But I know your plans.”
“The top of the escarpment near the Dacha should be quite safe, and much more conducive to our meditation.”
“I’m sure. Well, I need to get to the stage.” Will smiled and nodded, then headed on across the patio. His last stop was at the table of the Universal Church and Reverend Tuesday Nah. “Did you enjoy the dinner?”
“Yes, Dr. Elliott, it was delicious,” replied Tuesday. “And I have talked further to Alexandra Lescov. I think all of us will be fully employed in construction and fabrication. We have some valuable opportunities to learn how to use the outdoor equipment.”
“Excellent, I’m glad that’s resolved. I told you it could be done. Well, I need to get on the stage.” He continued across the room, then bounded onto the stage and walked to the podium in the middle. The crowd immediately began to quiet.
“Good evening everyone, and welcome to Mars,” he began. “When I look out at all of you, gathered in this very crowded place, my heart swells with pride for what we have done for Mars, and I feel a rush of anticipation when I think about the future. The numbers alone are quite remarkable. Nineteen years and two months ago, six people landed here at Aurorae. When we thought about the future then, we speculated that perhaps Mars would have one hundred people by the end of the century. We could not have imagined that 100 would be achieved in less than fifteen years. A decade ago we might have speculated that 1,000 people would live here by the end of the century. But this sol Mars has over 600, it can anticipate about 75 births in the next two years, and with the arrival of 300 more on Columbus 11, Mars will probably have 1,000 people by 2042. No one would have believed that possible. How many will be here in 2100? Dare we speculate?
“The growth of the population on Mars has been matched by a shrinkage of workers on Earth. Columbus 1 had a work force of about 20,000; a ratio of 3,000 terrestrial workers to 1 on Mars. With Columbus 10, we have 600 here and 2,000 on Earth. The steady growth of the population here will be matched by a shrinkage there as more and more of the support jobs are moved here or phased out. We have far more experience and expertise here than we had ten or almost twenty years ago. Our people can do more. As a result we are designing our own spacecraft and biomes.
“We have sunk roots deeply into Martian ground. The greatest proof is our children. Marshall Elliott, our oldest, is now 15. Because a typical couple waits two or three years after they arrive before having their first child, and two or three more years before having a second child if they have another one, we can predict that many of the first children of Columbus 9—which involved 96 people arriving here—will be born in 2040 and 2041, as will some of the second children of Columbus 8, which brought 72 more arrivals. Our school now has grades kindergarten through nine, plus sixty people studying for Masters and doctorates at Mariner Institute of Technology. The gap between grade nine and grad school will soon be closed.
“Our economy has now grown sufficiently that we can actually speak about having an economy. The notion would have been ridiculous during the first six years here. Yet now our operation has grown so complex that we have found it necessary to define a ‘Martian dollar’ or ‘redback’ as it is often called, worth about half a euro, the same as the Canadian and Australian dollars, the same as the Swiss franc, and two thirds the value of the U.S. dollar. With the fluctuation in currencies on Earth during the recent war and depression, Mars found it needed its own currency unit, and we were strong enough to convince everyone it was a good idea.
“The annexes and automated cargo vehicles returning to Earth next month will haul almost 500 tonnes of cargo back to Earth, a new record for us, and a match for our record-high imports. The exports will be worth six billion redbacks and will completely cover the cost of our terrestrial operations, including the research and development we fund. Forty percent of that value doesn’t belong to the Commission, but rather to companies operating here under a contract with the Commission. But the profits they make are not lost on us either, because they plow some of it into research that benefits us indirectly, and their profits drive up the demand for Martian land. If our gross domestic product were thought of as six billion redbacks, we would be larger than many of the smaller members of the United Nations. It may be that Mars will join the United Nations in this century, who knows?
“Domestically, the average worker here earns a salary of 500,000 redbacks per year. A third of it goes into mortgage payments that further stimulate the construction sector and another third goes to taxes and health insurance. Altogether, our domestic economy of a half million times 500 workers totals 250 million redbacks, which is becoming large as well. Until now we have had very few businesses and very little production of consumer goods. The remaining third of our incomes was either squirreled away in bank accounts on Earth or spent on expensive consumer goods that were imported at high cost. But the arrival of five communities, from Canada, Iran, Japan, Nigeria, and the United States, will probably change that drastically, as many of them plan to open businesses.
“Our growing complexity makes it very difficult to state priorities for the upcoming columbiad. For a third of our people, the priority will be to adjust to a new world and figure out how to earn a living. Business will be started and some will fail. There may be bankruptcies. We may even see a business cycle emerge with unemployment. Some will be involved with setting up an independent outpost. For the two thirds of us who work for the Commission there will be adjustments as well. Some of our work may be privatized. The overall result, we hope, will be greater efficiency without causing suffering on the part of all of us. Mars has prided itself with being a family-friendly place and we want to continue that, even improve it.
“You know the Commission’s priorities, but they bear repeating. Exports will increase, especially of platinum-class metals and deuterium. Gold production should grow slightly even though the deposits being recovered are much less concentrated than the earliest lodes. Two twelve-person teams will be dedicated to construction of oases across Mars, and we anticipate each team will be able to set up ten or eleven per year. The oases, every 700 kilometers along the Circumnavigational Trail and the Polar Trail, will greatly simplify further surface exploration and will allow children to accompany their parents into the field. Exploration goals mostly focus on filling in areas of uncertainty and pursuing specific research projects; we have now visited all major geological units on the planet and cleared dirt roads that give us access to every part of the world.
“Construction and fabrication has two large projects to pursue: manufacture of domes and of caravels. This columbiad we will complete the design of a B-160, a dome 160 meters in diameter, able to hold in a breathable atmosphere. That will complement the agricultural B-160 we’ve had for two years. We plan to erect six B-160s, three for farming, two for housing, and one for Bioarchive. We also anticipate completing two caravels this columbiad, one for us and one for NASA.
“But the big exploration goal is the Ceres Mission, which leaves in two years, makes stops at two asteroids on the way, visits the largest body in the asteroid belt, then returns to Mars five years later, visiting two or three more asteroids on the way back. The mission is ours, but it’s in cooperation with three space agencies, all of whom are launching swarms of asteroid probes. This decade will see a wholesale assault on asteroids, with as many as twelve nations and two private corporations considering crewed expeditions to asteroids. Most of them will not go to the asteroid belt, but Mars will be the departure or return point for those going to the belt. We will also play a role in expeditions to Jupiter and the other outer planets. So Mars is emerging as a key player in the exploration of the solar system. This is how it should be; we are a world of professional explorers.
“On earth, for thousands of years the basic unit of civilization was the village, a civil unit of 500 to 1,000 people. Mars has now grown to the point where it has a village. In a decade it will have a city and several villages. In short, we have reached the point where we can legitimately claim to be a culture, society, and civilization of our own. Humanity is now a two-world civilization. Though we are still small, we have an immense potential. We have already been an example to millions that a truly international, peaceful, prosperous society is possible. Our contribution to humanity can only grow. How quickly it grows, and how influential it becomes, is up to all of us.”
Will stepped down from the podium to powerful applause. At the two tables of members of the Green World Community, Victor McLeod leaned toward Forest Rivers, “So, we’re not the only utopians.”
Forest looked at him, surprised. “Of course not! Mars attracts utopians! We are a utopian community inside a utopian community! Utopia drives the settlement of this place! The b.s. about a family-friendly Mars is just middle class utopianism!”
“It’s working fairly well.”
“Combined with massive government subsidies and the fortuitous discovery of gold. We’re here because this place is utopian. Our community gets more publicity and is treated more seriously because it has people here. Wait till we get to Aram; then we’ll have a real utopia.”
“Too bad we can’t get there before September.”
“September! Hah! We don’t need a dome to get started. No, I want us there next month. Next month.”
© 2005 Robert H. Stockman
All rights reserved