12
Gold
Jerry McCord headed straight to the ranger’s cab as soon as he rose from his bunk bed in the portahab. Four new vehicles—two rangers, a portahab, and a conestoga—had set out on their first lengthy expedition and had stopped for the night near the point where Candor Chasma opened into Melas Chasma. The vehicle was facing west, so the windshield was oriented perfectly to see the towering escarpment illumined by the first dawning rays.
Jerry was awestruck by the sight. He opened the hatch to the portahab. “Come take a look at the escarpment while the sunlight’s still pinkish!” he exclaimed to Lal Shankaraman, with whom he was sharing the portahab. Dawns and dusks at the bottom of the Valles Marineris were among the planet’s most colorful, because of the thick air and dusty conditions.
Lal jumped off the upper bunk and hurried forward. “Wow!” he said, peering out the windshield. He had to lean forward in order to look all the way up to the top, towering so high it blocked a noticeable section of the sky. They were a mere two kilometers from the base of the cliffs.
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Then Jerry answered his own question. “It reminds me of the Grand Tetons. They just rise straight into the air like a wall!”
“I’ve seen them. Actually, this reminds me more of the front range of the Himalayas. The peaks rise about 4,000 or 5,000 meters above the Ganges plain. Of course, the Himalayas are separate mountain peaks, like the Tetons. This really is a solid, unbroken wall.”
“And 5,000 meters high. You’d have to drain the Red Sea and look up from the abyssal bottom to find a comparable view.”
“Even the Red Sea isn’t 5,000 meters deep in most places!”
“No, you’re right. There’s just nothing in the inner solar system you can compare it to.”
“Nothing. I will remember this all my life, I’m sure.”
“It’s almost enough to make me want to stay on this isolated world.”
“No, Jerry, nothing would make you want to do that!” replied Lal, joking. He planned to stay at least another cycle; Jerry had repeatedly said he never would.
“Well, let’s get washed and have our breakfast so we can get into Candor this sol. I hope your detour proves worth while.”
“I’m sure it will.” Lal headed back into the portahab to use the bathroom. Jerry lingered another minute to scan the rock spurs and building-sized boulders that dotted the escarpment, then headed in to pull out breakfast items; they had been gone from the Outpost only a week, so there was plenty of fresh food. Then his attaché rang. A call from Will Elliott, back at the Outpost.
Will looked happy. “Morning. How’s everything at Melas?”
“Fine; we just woke up. We’re now three time zones to the west, remember.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were two. You’re going into Candor this sol, right?”
“Yes. That’s why we aren’t at the Melas Cache. Route 1 turns south at this point and heads into the middle of Melas, where the landing pad and the supplies are located. This is the point to head west a few kilometers, then north into Candor.”
“I remember the route; I was just making sure everything is on schedule. Isn’t the escarpment incredible there? I like it the best a bit farther east in Coprates; the escarpment is 6,000 meters high, and there are spots where the cliff is intact all the way up and you can stand so close you hurt your neck to see the top!”
“Yes, we stopped at one of those spots yestersol. I’d like to clear the route along the top, some day; the views would be incredible.”
“But so different. At the bottom the horizon is in your face because of the wall of rock; from the top, it seems you can see all the way around the world. Anyway, I was just checking in. An hour ago we got clearance from Houston to send out two three-vehicle expeditions when you get back, or send out one five-vehicle expedition. They will have more ground support people by then.”
“Excellent; congratulations on winning that battle! How’s the construction?”
Will sighed. “More delays. The excavating work is just too much for the rangers; they aren’t designed for the strain. So we’re constantly breaking parts and replacing them, then repairing the parts for later use. But we’ll have the foundation excavated in another week. Meanwhile, we’re welding various metal sheets and beams together so that they’re ready for installation when we start to pour the walls.”
“It’s amazing that we can do so much construction in pressure suits; though not very conveniently. I’m glad I’m out here.”
“Well, enjoy, and call me if there are any questions or problems. Bye.”
“Will do. Bye.”
Will closed the circuit and watched Jerry’s face disappear from the screen. He had received a call from Earth during the conversation. He opened the videomail; it was from Heather Kimball.
“Will, I just got a call from our Mars Exploration Society chapter in Germany. They’ve been negotiating with the German government and it looks like a cooperative arrangement might be possible whereby Germany will sponsor launch of our Mars dome on Europe’s Swift shuttle. As you probably have heard, ESA plans to purchase a Swift shuttle early next year to ‘supplement’ the Ariane launch system at Kourou. Basically, Europe has caved in and is switching to the Swifts. The decision is becoming politicized in their relationship with NASA, so watch out.
“This means we can get the dome into low earth orbit for $16 million; one launch with the dome and one with the life support equipment and ion engine propellant. There, the German government will oversee transfer of the propellant and cargo to a used interorbital tug they will help us lease, which will push the payload to Gateway. It’ll take ten months because the tug has been modifed to use argon propellant; we can’t afford $70 million for four tonnes of xenon. If we can get it to Gateway, we hope NASA will agree to lease one of their automated cargo vehicles for the Mars flight, since they aren’t planning to use them all next opposition. Of course, all of this compounds NASA’s embarrassment over the Swift, but that isn’t my problem. I’m hoping the embarrassment will push them to lease an ACV to us. If they refuse, we may be able to purchase a vehicle from the Japanese for $50 million plus $20 million in launching costs—using their expensive EELV, of course—but we want to avoid that.
“So it’s beginning to look like we can develop the dome for about $50 million, plus there will be transfer costs of $5 million, the leased tug will be $10 million, the launch to LEO will be $16 million, the argon will be $1 million, and the lunar fuel for trans-Mars injection will be $5 million, for a total of $100 million when you include insurance and administrative costs. We have a few corporate backers lined up, too. Of course, at your end there will be costs for the flight up to orbit to retrieve the dome, but that won’t be the MES’s concern. What we would like to do is acquire an agreement from NASA that the shuttle you send up to retrieve the dome will lift fifteen tonnes of fossiliferous rocks to the cargo vehicle and send it on a trajectory back to Earth. We can sell the fossiliferous samples for about $75 million, depending on demand, so it’ll cover most of our costs. I suspect you can help talk Lassen into this. I have contacts at the White House, which is more receptive than the administrator, ironically enough, but we need comments coming from many directions, if you know what I mean. Bye.”
Will savored the videomail for a moment before replying. “Good sol, Kimball. My goodness, I am impressed by your ingenuity! It speaks of the maturity of space flight technology, I guess, that a private society can cobble together an interplanetary mission from ion propulsion vehicles flying around Earth orbit, a heat shield, private launch capacity, and lunar propellant. It says something about space agency bureaucracy as well, doesn’t it?
“We’ll be glad to help in any way we are allowed to. If NASA leases you an ACV, they’ll permit a Mars shuttle launch. Alas, we can’t launch to orbit without permission. So far all launches have been to retrieve cargo or people or to take cargo and people up. That may change in eight months; we may launch a crew to Phobos because one of the two Lifters based there has still not managed a suitable hard docking with the fuel-making plant. That means it can’t be refueled. Meanwhile, the other Lifter is taking all the fuel produced by both plants and will soon be full. This is good news because we will have a launch with unused cargo capacity and bad news because we can’t promise to push anything back to Earth if one of the Lifters can’t be refueled.
“I have to talk to Lassen tomorrow about various matters, so I’ll raise this one as well. We really could use a big pressurized open space. Our production of oxygen, nitrogen, and argon is now so great that, if the air inside can’t be kept purified, we can replace it entirely every month or so. Hence I’m not convinced by arguments that a hundred million dollars of basic research is needed first to make sure the systems work. We can do the testing here.
“Oh, and let me know how big the dome is now, will you? They keep changing the specifications. Bye.”
Will went back to his work. One of the agency’s lawyers sent him an email about the negotiations toward establishing a Mars Commission; the formation of the Mars civic government had created legal complications, ones Will welcomed because it meant he had to be consulted about the plans. He stored the questions so that he could think about them and ask the opinions of others.
He left his desk to wander the outpost and make sure all was well. The greenhouses were now all green; they promised near-complete self-sufficiency in vegetables, fruits, grains, and meats in a few more months. This did not equate with complete self-sufficiency because they were still importing coffee, tea, sugar, many spices, beef, alcoholic beverages, exotic foods (such as mangos), and processed foods (such as corn flakes), but they were meeting about 85% of their needs and could easily meet 90% with some emergency rearrangements. Nor were they meeting their needs for cotton or for fiber (for making paper, for example). These were matters to tackle in the future.
While he was in the greenhouses Pavel called and asked about construction details, so Will called him over to Greenhouse 9 where they could see each other’s faces and converse by cellular communicator. Pavel pointed to the places he had to ask about and Will agreed with his plans. He was about to return to his office when his cellular videophone flashed with a notice that Kimball had replied. Will turned away from the sun to shadow the tiny video screen and pressed play.
“Hi again. Thanks for promising to talk to Lassen. As for the specs, they’ve just been updated on the website. The dome will be thirty meters in diameter and have a maximum center height of ten meters. That’ll give you 700 square meters of enclosed space; equivalent of six greenhouses, and we’re manufacturing it for the cost of about one! That’s the advantage of private industry, as opposed to the space agency doing the work. I don’t know why NASA should fly you greenhouses any more; these are more energy efficient and have a mass less than half of the greenhouses per square meter. Take a look when you get the chance. Bye.”
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After breakfast, Lal drove the conestoga due west, leading the expedition’s three vehicles around boulders, craters, and landslide piles. After six kilometers they came to the opening to Candor Chama and turned northward. The connection was a chaotic area of channel deposits buried by landslide debris and blanketed by thick deposits of windblown dust. Geologically, it was one of the planet’s most complex pieces of real estate. Half the crew, riding in a conestoga, stopped frequently to explore while the two rangers pushed forward, clearing a 4-meter wide dirt track across the stone fields.
Close to
sunset, they came over a lithified sand dune and down into a large area where
the eolian deposits were eroded away and the channel deposits beautifully
exposed. Several catastrophic floods had issued forth from Candor and it
appeared that for a few million years a stream flowed from the canyon most of
the time, producing one of Mars’s more mature fluvial features. Consequently
they had good reason to conduct a thorough examination of the exposed deposits.
Lal Shankaraman was in his element as he strode across the slightly lithified deposit of gravel, pebbles, and sand. It reminded him of hundreds of alluvial fans and boulder bars he had prowled, from the base of the Himalayas to Nevada. There were differences caused by the lower gravity that were already documented and he was familiar with them; he noted the crude stratification and imbrication of the cobbles with an expert eye. The materials had a different physical appearance on Mars as well because weathering proceeded in mostly subfreezing conditions in the absence of oxygen; the rocks were not as deeply rusted and oxidized. But otherwise they were a familiar mix. Upstream had been high-silica intrusions, nearly granitic rocks such as were found in thousands of regions across the Earth, the stuff of the Earth’s continents though fairly rare on Mars. Consequently the deposits were filled with quartz and feldspars, though the feldspars were richer in calcium than typical on Earth.
As Lal scanned the outcrops under his feet, a shiny yellow reflection caught his eye. The sun had not yet dropped beneath the escarpment; sunlight was glinting off of something shiny. Curious, he reached down and tried to pick it up. It was cemented in place—the deposit was three billion years old, unlike the alluvium he usually studied on Earth—but a single tap with his rock hammer was enough to break it free. He picked it up and brought it to his helmet. Uncertain what it was, he pushed a button and flipped a magnifying lens down in front of his left eye, to take a close look.
“Say, this is gold,” he exclaimed aloud. His radio was set on a public channel so that everyone could hear.
“Gold? Really?” asked Jerry, who was nearby.
“Yes, a very nice nugget. Pure gold, probably; I’d say it weighs 100 or 150 grams.”
“This deposit is eroded from the right kind of host rock,” observed Jerry. “I’ve never seen gold on the moon before; let me see.” McCord walked over and took the nugget from Lal. He looked closely through his magnifier, then nodded. “Fascinating. I’ve never seen native gold before.”
“Never?” Lal was surprised.
“The igneous processes on the moon don’t segregate it, and my geology has focused on the moon or terrestrial analogs.” Jerry sounded a bit defensive.
“Goodness, I’ve even panned for gold once! It was fun. Do you realize this nugget is worth over a thousand bucks on Earth?”
“I’d say you should keep it, but it belongs to the agency. Does it tell us anything about the depositional environment?”
“Nothing we don’t already know.”
“Interesting.” Jerry handed it back to Lal, who put it in his collection pouch. But as he walked around, he found the gold distracting him. Lal was planning to stay on Mars four years and he was sensitive to the need to find ways to support the mission. Gold, obviously, was a valuable resource; at ten million dollars per tonne on Earth, it was worth far more than the costs of shipping it there.
He continued to scan the deposit, but his eye was now sensitized to gold. He spotted another glint and ignored it, trying to return his thoughts to professional concerns. A few minutes later he spotted a third nugget; that time he bent down and picked it up. It was much smaller and he decided he’d keep it for himself, since they were free to keep samples. Then he spotted a fourth one, which he also collected.
The light began to fail around him. Lal looked up; the sun had dropped below the escarpment and only the topmost cliffs were still reflecting light downward. He looked around; he had walked a hundred meters or more from Jerry. The others were exploring another alluvial deposit about 400 meters away. He turned and headed back to the vehicles; it was time.
“Everyone back to the vehicle,” exclaimed Jerry just then. He had realized it was time as well.
By the time they reached the conestoga, they were stumbling in semi-darkness. The four of them entered it through the back door; rangers 1 and 2 were on their way back to them, having pushed the dirt track forward another five kilometers. They closed the door, pressurized the cabin, then pulled off their helmets and gloves. Érico and Patrice had found a quiet water deposit and excitedly described it; it was unexpected. Lal listened and wondered what to say about the nuggets.
The other two vehicles arrived and they waited cautiously while they all docked together, including the portahab. Once the docking was complete the others entered the conestoga. Linda Dubois—who had been driving the second ranger—entered and they all exchanged stories. Lal told everyone about the gold.
“We should let Will know,” said Érico. “This is significant.”
Jerry rolled his eyes. “He’ll want us to become gold prospectors. I’d be careful.”
“This does have the potential to help pay for Mars exploration,” agreed Lal. “I spotted four nuggets in fifteen minutes; maybe 250 grams of gold. If we look closely, we’ll find lots of gold flakes as well, I’m sure.”
“We should find out,” agreed Érico. “This is not the time to collect a lot of gold, but we can study the deposit.”
“We’d need equipment to collect it anyway,” said Lal. “Specialized equipment could be imported from Earth and liquid carbon dioxide could be used to concentrate it. An astronaut would just feed gravel into the hopper with a power shovel.”
“Liquid carbon dioxide?” asked Patrice, skeptically.
Lal nodded. “There are studies about the problem.”
“There are studies about everything,” said Maria. “Making it work is another thing.”
There was a lull in the conversation. Then Jerry said, “Well, let’s get supper cooking.” They all turned to supper duties.
But after supper Lal headed to his bunk in the portahab, then pulled out his attaché. He dialed Will’s number.
“Hello; Lal?” he said, answering the live video call. He was surprised to receive a call from the geologist.
“Good evening, Commander. I hope it’s not too late to call you; goodness, it’s 9 p.m. here, so I guess it’s now midnight there! I’m sorry it’s so late; I forgot about the additional time zone. I thought I should let you know that I found four gold nuggets this sol just before sunset.”
“Gold?” Will’s voice went from sleepy to wide awake. “How much? Is there a lot, or a little?”
“In fifteen minutes I found four nuggets and picked up three. I’ve weighed them; 233 grams, a bit less than I thought. It’s a placer deposit and we’d have to tear it apart to get a real sense of the quantity, but I’d say it’s looking promising.”
“It sounds like it! I’ll call Jerry. We need to survey the deposit. If we can extract a few tonnes of gold, we can make a substantial amount of money for the mission. What was his reaction?”
“Scientific curiosity about the samples.”
“That’s what I would expect. Okay, I’ll talk to Jerry in general terms. He and I always talk every morning before your breakfast anyway. Thanks for letting me know.”
“Delighted, Commander. I agree that this is immensely important for our future here. We’ll need equipment to extract gold easily and in quantity, but at least the option may now be available to us.”
“Exactly. We need to be able to justify the settlement of this place. Settlement means families and children, and they are not needed for scientific work here so they can’t be directly justified financially. But if a small amount of our time can generate large financial returns we can justify settlement of this place, which is the only way to do good long-term science here anyway! So I am very grateful for your sharp eye.”
“Delighted. Good night.”
“Good night.” Will and Lal both closed the phone line.
Ethel had been awake in bed, nursing Marshall. “Gold, huh?”
“Yes, isn’t that fantastic! It sounds like a lot of it, too.”
“Amazing, that we’ve explored a tiny fraction of this world and have stumbled onto gold.”
“Yes. But I suppose it isn’t too surprising; we’re looking at the most interesting geological provinces first. The dry land area of the Earth is about the same as Mars and it had hundreds of rich deposits of gold. We won’t exploit any poor quality deposits because we can go after the richest ones instead.”
“Which would make them more profitable, compared to the remaining deposits on Earth. But we haven’t decided to harvest it.”
“I have every intention to pursue this matter. We will harvest gold. When Jerry calls tomorrow, I suspect he’ll tell me he plans to stay and survey the deposit. He knows my priorities.”