10

Dacha

Phobos was high overhead, half full, and racing eastward when Will walked through the biome on his way home. He stopped long enough to contemplate their little worldlet, about a tenth as bright as the Earth’s moon but bright enough to throw shadows when full. In the biome, however, electric lights made the shadows invisible. Only the brightest stars were visible through the slightly frosted dome.

Will pushed through the revolving door and pushed open the pressure door inside, then turned left and went down the stairs. When he came to the apartment’s front door he said “open please” and waited for the lock to slide away, then opened the door. The new voice recognition software was so good they had eliminated key cards; it worked better with children, too.

The living room was dark, except for a nightlight and a little light coming in from the high windows. The television screen glowed slightly as well with an image of wooded hills in moonlight; some of the Connecticut hills near Will’s boyhood home, which would show sunrise when the time for dawn came. The children’s bedrooms were on the right; the doors were ajar. After them, there was a blank area of wall where they’d eventually put cabinets, an electric oven, a two-burner stove, and a small refrigerator; it was a matter of when they could be imported or made, and conditions suggested it would be a while. The kitchenette area did have a sink already installed. Past it was the master bedroom. He opened the door; Ethel was asleep. She stirred when he entered.

“What time is it? After midnight!” Ethel was surprised. “I wish you had called! Marshall was wondering where you were and wouldn’t go to sleep without you. I called you a few times and you didn’t answer!”

“I’m sorry. I think all our communicators were going off.”

“Well, call! He didn’t go to bed until almost 10 p.m.!”

“Oh, God, he’ll never get up in the morning, then. I’m sorry.”

“I was absolutely fried trying to get him to sleep. I fell asleep first; when I woke up, he was finally asleep. And then I was so exhausted I just went to bed.”

“I can imagine. I’m sorry.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Really, this was the worst head of staff meeting I’ve ever had. Morgan’s getting desperate to close the budget gap; right now we don’t have the money to fly Columbus 6, pay the staff, and cover all the various contracts we’ve signed. NASA’s downright hostile and won’t help. Morgan’s been calling his Senator friends in Washington and they say the assistance has to be channeled through NASA.”

“It sounds like NASA is trying to destroy the Commission.”

“Or even the Mars project. It won’t be the first time politics has overridden common sense or the common good.” Will sighed. “It makes all my heads of staff anti-American, which is another test. And it makes everyone fight to increase their department’s share of the pie on the grounds that it will solve our problem. Morgan and Dvorkin—he’s the new Director of Exports in Houston—want us to dig 150 million dollars of gold by Columbus 5’s departure on December 4.”

Ethel was startled. “That’s five months! That’s impossible!”

“Well, some people think we can do it if we send ten people to Candor right away.”

“Ten! Where would they stay!”

“In the Phobos and Deimos habitats and in Biome 2’s second building bubble. The latter would be big enough for them; the moonlet habitats would provide redundancy.”

Ethel shook her head. “We’d have to send ten more to build their housing, and that means four or five rangers; that’s half the operation!”

Will nodded. “And anything less would not be safe. When you calculate the number of sunwing flights and cargo trailers hauled by ranger that are needed, it boggles the mind. And there’s no really safe landing site near the Candor gold deposits, either; only the middle of the canyon is far from the downslope winds, and it’s a two hour drive. The alternative is driving everything, which would wear out vehicles and probably would require widening the Marineris Trail for safety reasons. Alexandra’s furious with the idea; constructing housing for up to twenty people three thousand of kilometers from here would be a logistical nightmare. They’d basically have to camp in tents inside the bubble. The plan’s not practical. I think Morgan’s leaning against it.”

Will sighed, “But it gets worse. In retaliation, Dvorkin’s attacking Alexandra—criticizing is too polite a description—for wasting time building the dacha on top of the escarpment. He even said she was doing it to justify her department, now that the biome is complete. Of course, the dacha was started several weeks before the big meeting that marked the beginning of this crisis. Petropoulos says the dacha has already raised land values on top of the escarpment; we had to buy back two square kilometers of land from owners at double their purchase price, so now everyone realizes their land might really have resale value. Soderblom and Roger Anderson say we should concentrate instead on strong exploration, a strong media campaign, and stronger governmental relations. We might be able to borrow or gain a grant from someone, after all. Morgan points out the most likely source of a loan or grant is China and that would further alienate the United States. Soderblom thinks a Saudi grant may be possible, but that raises the issue of Arab influence up here and you can imagine how that would play in the west.” Will shook his head.

“Sounds like a mess. Candor’s not the only gold source, though. I thought Dawes and Cassini both look richer.”

“They probably are, but we won’t be sure until we visit them. Dawes is on the equator, but is too high for the sunwings to carry a lot, so we’d have to drill a well, fly a shuttle there with cargo and a reactor, and it’d have to sit there and wait to refuel. It’d take three weeks to bulldoze through to it from the Circumnavigational Trail. Cassini’s lower and may have more mineral potential, but is fairly far north, so one can’t launch gold into equatorial orbit from there. It’s not too far from an area that could be explored, but otherwise it’s a long way down a trail we haven’t built yet, which means no gold recovery for about two months.”

“So, is Morgan going to break the deadlock?”

“He’s still gathering information.”

“You all have been gathering information for almost two months. It’s time to move. Otherwise, it’ll be too late to do anything before December.”

Will considered. “I agree. Maybe the Assistant Commissioner on Mars and the Commander for Mars Operations should cut the gordian knot.”

“I think so.” Ethel glanced at the clock. “Let’s get to sleep; the kids will be up pretty early. Will, if you have to work so many hours, you’ll have to sleep less. You have to save 7 to 9 p.m. for family time. No exceptions.”

“None?”

“None.”

“Okay, but I’ll have to make exceptions when Morgan calls.”

---------------------------------------

Will didn’t sleep well that night. The next morning he rose early and went up on the roof, among the gardens, to say his morning prayers; he often went up there for solitude. The relative peace helped inspire his set of decisions. As he returned to the staircase, he was surprised to see John Hunter coming up the stairs with a bundle in his hand.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, Commander. It’s a beautiful sol, isn’t it?”

“Yes; no wind at all, an almost blue sky. The sunwings definitely can fly now. Enjoy the peace up here.”

“Thank you, it’s really essential. It’s as close as I can get to a feel for the land.”

“It’s almost nature, up here. Have a good sol, John.” Will hurried down the stairs and dashed to the patio to grab breakfast for the family. They had a fairly routine, though surprisingly long, breakfast. When Will went to his attaché to send an email to the heads of staff, Marshall was right behind him. “Dad, I want to send a videomessage to Jerry.”

“Who?”

“Jerry Case, in Connecticut.”

“Oh, yes. He was at your birthday party. Alright.” Will switched his attaché to Marshall’s account. Marshall knew what to do right away. Jerry had sent him a message; he asked the computer to display it and laughed as Jerry talked to him for about five minutes. Then he offered an equally rambling and silly reply. Will began to look at his watch.

“Give him a chance,” said Ethel. “This is very important to him. Jerry’s his age; he has no real peers here.”

“I know, but I’m afraid I’ll miss some heads of staff.”

“They’ll get your message, don’t worry.”

Marshall finally finished; Will got to send his videomessage to the heads of staff and Sergio, asking them to meet him at 8:30 a.m. at his office. When he reached his office at 8:35, almost everyone was there, and Will’s videophone was ringing. He headed to it first.

“Hello.”

Alexandra’s face appeared. “Good sol, Will. I just got your email, and I’m afraid I’m already at the dacha. A group of us got a really early start. It’ll take me another hour to get there, I’m afraid. Can the meeting be postponed?”

“Ah, no, but that’s okay. I’ll drive up to fill you in later; I’ve been meaning to get up there to see the construction. I’ll be up later this morning, I think.”

“Oh.” From the tone of her voice, clearly she was surprised. “Okay. Let me know when you plan to arrive.”

“I’ll do that. I may be able to come up with the later work crew; I gather they’ll be going up pretty soon?”

“Yes, there’s a group leaving at 10, I think. They have geology work to do for two hours in the morning.”

“I’ll come up with them, but have someone drive an extra ranger up, or maybe I’ll drive it myself. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Will closed the communications circuit. Just then, Yevgeny hurried up. “Alexandra left for the Dacha an hour ago; she won’t be back in time for this meeting,” he exclaimed.

“I know, we just talked. That’s alright, I can talk to her later. Let’s all sit down. I have a sort of plan.”

That raised the tension in the air noticeably. Everyone sat quickly. “Okay,” Will began. “For the last six weeks we’ve been re-opening the trails that were partly drifted over with dust. I think it’s time to act, and we’ve got to make up our minds together and present the result to Morgan. I’m sure he’ll approve it under those circumstances. Andries, how quickly can we get two shuttles ready to fly a reactor, a portahab, two rangers, gold excavation equipment, a drill, and six people to Cassini?”

Andries thought a moment. “We could be there in a week. But we don’t have permission to fly shuttles from one spot on Mars to another, and it would take a long time to refuel the shuttles for the return flight.”

“I don’t think we’ll have trouble getting permission to fly two shuttles to Cassini. We’ve been flying them for ten years now and know their capabilities. Refueling one shuttle enough to fly it back to the Outpost empty will take one reactor, seven tonnes of water, and about a month of time. Between Cassini and Dawes, which would you favor?”

“Cassini’s a bit better, I think; mineralogically more diverse. But they both have huge potential; they both may be of the scale of the Witwatersrand complex back home.”

“I gather. I want gold production to start as soon as possible, and the shuttles are the way to do it; besides, flying them this way will be interesting to the media, and we need that, too. Roger, how long to travel out the Circumnavigational, then quickly drive due south a thousand kilometers to Cassini?”

“No stops? Two or three weeks, I suppose. But that’s not the way we planned to go to Cassini. It’s slated to be on the Virgo Trail. We had planned to move Virgo farther north in that area to follow the highland/lowland dichotomy, but instead we could just extend it to Cassini—”

Will raised his hand. “I know. From Cassini, you can extend the new trail north to the dichotomy and build Virgo in any direction you want. So make getting to Cassini your priority. The way to do that is to go via the Circumnavigational. Besides, if Cassini doesn’t pan out, you can then quickly drive back to the equator and press northward a thousand kilometers to Dawes. And if Cassini does work out, you can use it as a base of operations to explore the dichotomy, which is spectacular north of there. If there’s any extra time, we will have made it relatively easy to explore the Dawes area as well. It’s a question of killing two birds with one stone.”

“But Will, the Commission needs at least 20 tonnes of gold—$200 million—and this plan might not generate any,” exclaimed Yevgeny.

“Let’s look longer term than December, Yevgeny. Let’s prove that gold reserves are ample in Cassini and/or Dawes, establish solid infrastructure to recovery it, and begin some production. Silvio, would that mean the Commission could get loans?”

“Sure, or land sales to mining partners.”

“But if we sell mineral rights, we don’t get as much profit,” said Yevgeny.

“And if we have to recover 20 tonnes of gold in less than six months, we won’t get anything else done,” persisted Will. “Let’s put ourselves in the position to sell several hundred million dollars or more of mineral rights; the income will fuel the expansion that will produce the gold. We can’t be doing this amateurishly and we can’t rush it.”

“And exploration?” asked Roger.

“Send four rangers, two Conestogas, two reactors, the two mobilhabs, a trailer, and twelve people to Cassini overland, set up a landing strip, and make sure the gold recovery is proceeding. After that, some can head north to the dichotomy and others can head east or west to clear Virgo Trail. We can run three expeditions from the same spot at once. People who get tired of exploring can run the gold equipment, and vice versa.”

“Exploration and mineral extraction.” Roger nodded. “That’s the best we can do.”

“I’d focus on loans and sale of mineral rights,” agreed Silvio. “Sometimes you’re better off borrowing against the future.”

“Let’s count on it,” said Will. “Let’s say we can get the infrastructure in place to extract one hundred tonnes of gold per columbiad—that’s $1 billion in sales. Let’s say we keep half and half goes to a mining company; that’s $500 million for the company. Over ten columbiads, that’s $10 billion, and with the obvious implication that during that time a lot more equipment can be flown here and production can increase, and every columbiad transportation costs will drop. How much would a company be willing to spend for land?”

“Billions; maybe even ten billion, if future options are included,” said Silvio. “Maybe half that, if they have to fly out the crew and buy the additional ACVs and shuttles.”

“Either way, we get money and a bigger Mars,” replied Will.

“But why Cassini instead of Dawes?” asked Yevgeny.

“It’s a flip of a coin,” replied Will. “But Cassini’s closer to an area we need to explore, so we’ll go there for the science.”

“Then let’s do it,” agreed Roger.

“Andries, you talk to Érico about what we have to do to fly two shuttles down. Yevgeny and Silvio, you write up a memo about the export and financial side. Roger, you write a memo summarizing the science we can do from Cassini throughout the northern highlands and along the dichotomy, and I suppose into the Vastitas Borealis area as well. I’ll put together a cover memo summarizing everything. Houston’s asleep right now; I’d like to have this ready to go to Morgan this afternoon. Meanwhile, I’ll drive down to the dacha to brief Alexandra.”

Everyone nodded; the meeting broke up. Will had just enough time to check his messages. David wrote from Magellan about the successful deployment of their first Samandar-3 Sunwing in the Venus atmosphere and how one of its Phoenix fuel cell-powered airplanes had already flown down to an old, dead rover on the surface, had snagged its sample canister, and had brought the rocks back to the Samandar, where a fairly sophisticated computer-controlled laboratory was busily analyzing them. It was their first successful science.

He had no time to reply; that would wait. He ran down to Joseph Hall and jumped onto a ranger that was about to head up to the dacha. When he was finished up there he could drive it back to the Outpost himself, and the ranger could be set to drive itself back to the dacha at ten kilometers per hour, a speed where the computer would not have any trouble with the steep inclines and sharp turns.

On board were Ruhullah, Greg, John, Zach, and Thierry; Thierry was driving. “What is this, the Prospector drivers and geologists are still doing construction?” said Will, surprised.

“The Prospectors are mostly in suspension right now,” replied Zach. “Some of us are still busy with construction, the geologists are busy proposing explorations, and the sunwings are all back here for maintenance.”

“That’s true.” Three sunwings had been caught in the air when the Outpost’s runway had to close, and they managed to keep flying for five months, but now all three were on the ground for extensive maintenance. “Well, the sunwings are going back up pretty soon, so the Prospectors can get back to work.”

“Good,” said Greg. “I’m not in geology or Prospectors, of course, but lately I’ve found that I can get the robot cleaners and the laundry machines started in the morning, go up to the Dacha for four or five hours of work, then return. My nursing skills are sometimes needed up there.”

“Like last week,” commented Ruhullah. Greg nodded. Enrique had cut himself rather badly on some equipment and had missed three sols of work; Greg had stopped the bleeding.

“Any idea when we’ll be going out on the range?” John asked.

“I think in a week, but I’ll be sure tonight or tomorrow. Morgan has to approve the plan.”

“Finally!” exclaimed Thierry.

“Commander, is there any truth to the rumor that NASA has decided to get out of Mars exploration?” asked Greg.

“Get out? No, that’s not true. But it appears the administration is scaling back on Mars in favor of an asteroid mission, low orbit industrialization, and technological development.”

“So, will Columbus 6 use the solid core nuclear engines?” asked Ruhullah.

Will shook his head. “Probably not. The fuel costs will be almost as much as the current system and the lease of the two SCN-25s will be several hundred million bucks. I’m afraid if NASA isn’t going to support exploration here much, we’re not going to rent the nukes.”

“So, families are stuck here?”

“For another two years, anyway. None of the kids are old enough to be trained for space flight, anyway.”

“That’s true,” said Greg. He asked Will about the upcoming summer Olympics and they switched subjects for the rest of the ride up Little Colorado Canyon.

About an hour after leaving the Outpost, the ranger approached the bubble. It was quite strange to see a transparent structure perched on the edge of the cliff and be able to look inside at what looked like a fairly ordinary building by terrestrial standards. The building occupied the center of the crescent-shaped bubble and was roughly twelve meters square and three stories high; its exterior of vinyl siding and large plexiglass windows was complete. To the left of the building was a partially completed patio of duricrete; a metal vehicle airlock extended from the bubble. To the right of the building was the untouched plastic floor of the bubble, an area slated for future construction.

Thierry drove the ranger straight into the airlock and pushed a button, closing the airlock’s exterior door. Once it was closed, a pump began to fill the airlock with compressed Martian air. In a minute or two a green light came on and the inner door opened. Thierry drove the ranger into the bubble. The airlock door closed behind them and they opened the ranger door to get out.

Alexandra was waiting for Will. “It’s been a long time since you’ve come up here.”

“Yes; well over a month. I see the main building’s now complete.”

“On the outside; we still have a week or two of work to do inside. Do you want a tour?”

“Sure.” He followed Alexandra southward across the bubble to the very edge of the escarpment; the building had actually been built a bit past the edge of the cliff!—then inside. They entered a room that ran across the entire cliff-facing front of the building, and was nine meters deep. “The dining room. The kitchen and life support controls are in the back. We can fit eight round tables with eight each in this space, or half that many with a dance floor, though I suppose we’ll dance outside.” She pointed to the patio where the two rangers were parked. After they looked around the room to admire it, she led Will to the stairway in the back of the building.

They went up to the second floor. A corridor ran along the back wall, which was plexiglass covering the bubble, giving a beautiful view of the rolling highlands north of the escarpment. There were four doors. “Four rooms, each three meters wide and twelve deep. The same on the third floor.” She pointed up, so they went up to the top level. She led him into the first room; the door was open and the unit was mostly finished. “All the rooms have a generous bathroom here in the back and each will have a Jacuzzi, though we can only install two Jacuzzis right now; the others will have to await parts imported from Earth. Each room will have a king-sized bed, too. Come see the view.” She led him to the window.

“Wow,” said Will, and for a moment he had nothing to add. The room extended against the southern side of the bubble and looked out over the entire Aurorae Chaos, a vast rolling stony plain 1.5 kilometers below that stretched to the southern horizon, a land of browns, reds, yellows, and grays, all under a pinkish sky. The Outpost was plainly visible, 16 kilometers away. “Incredible. There’s nothing like this on Earth.”

“Nothing. Maybe tourists will flock here some day; meanwhile, we’ll have a nice vacation getaway.”

“So we can accommodate sixteen.”

“More if there are three or four to a room, which would be true if a family came here. If you and Ethel come, reserve the room next door for the kids.” She pointed to an interconnecting door. “It can be locked from either side, of course.”

“And building two will occupy the right side of the bubble?”

She nodded. “It’ll be a bit smaller; three rooms per floor, but will use all three floors. So altogether we’ll have seventeen rooms up here. The left side of the bubble will eventually be occupied by a parking garage that can accommodate four rangers. Above the parking area will be a swimming pool ten meters long and up to eight meters wide; a floor can be rolled over it to form a space for dancing or tennis, just like in Yalta.”

“Assuming we can manage to haul all that water up here!”

“There isn’t any up here, that’s for sure.”

“It’s quite a plan. And we’re going to enjoy this place quite a lot.”

“But when will we be finishing it? I suppose that’s what you’ve come here to tell me.”

Will nodded. “We can finish building one. It sounds like it’ll be done in another month or so. But building two will have to wait until at least early next year, maybe longer. I’m proposing to Morgan that we fly two shuttles to Cassini right away—in a week or so—to start looking for gold. The data from the sunwing reconnaissance of the area is that extensive placer gold deposits have formed in the area. Until we actually explore the region, we won’t know what’s there. If the deposits aren’t rich enough we’ll check out Dawes instead.”

“Why not return to Candor?”

“Maybe we will, but we have exhausted the really rich placer deposits there, and the recovery levels we need would require too many people and machines. We’re going for the quick wealth right now. After we’ve imported a hundred million dollar machine for digging and separating gold, we’ll head for lower grade deposits. We need to find deposits that are a hundred times richer than the ones being dug on Earth, or it isn’t worth our time and effort.”

“They say those deposits should be here, because Earth had them once upon a time.”

“Exactly. In a hundred years when transportation between Earth and Mars and faster and cheaper and there are ten thousand folks up here, we’ll be able to afford mining deposits that are merely three or four times richer than on Earth. Right now we have to find the super-rich deposits, and we’ve got the ability to do it by combining our very sophisticated remote sensing data with surface exploration by foot. I’m sending six people to Cassini in the shuttles, and Roger’s sending an expedition with six vehicles and twelve more people overland. Once they map the gold areas, we’ll have to plan what sort of infrastructure to build. I need your people to focus on that, rather than on building the dacha.”

“It’ll be plenty big enough with building 1. In fact, building 1 could serve as housing for half of Columbus 6. I assume we’ll continue working on Catalina?”

“Yes, set up the outer biome bubble and the bubble for building 2. When Columbus 6 arrives, we’ll have to have building 2 finished and ready for them. I think we should have the entire outer shell of building one finished as well, complete with the agriculture on the roof; we’ll inflate the bubble for building one inside and build it, and we should have all the building materials ready so the structure can go up fast. But you don’t understand how important Cassini could be, I think. If we find the rich gold deposits we think we can find, even with our existing equipment we might recover fifty tonnes of gold per year; that’s over a billion dollars of gold exports per columbiad. That could set off a gold rush of sorts, with companies buying billions of dollars of mineral rights and shipping the personnel and equipment to recover their gold. A half billion dollar investment can get four workers and sophisticated equipment here, and those workers could excavate a billion dollars of gold per columbiad. Dawes may be mined next. So Mars may see new outposts springing up; mining outposts. That’s what you have to think about.”

“Other outposts.” She nodded. “It’s a shame we can’t grow this one.”

“Oh, I think we will. Maybe all that’s needed is two to four people to maintain equipment, and it can be operated from here. Or maybe companies will want their own outposts. We don’t know yet. But if there will be other outposts on Mars, they’ll be based on one of the most important forces in human society: money.”

“I understand. When will you know about this plan?”

“I hope we’ll get it to Morgan later this sol and we’ll hear right away. Time’s passing fast.”

“Okay. Just let me know and we’ll get started. The dacha needs another week for building 1, and we’ll be able to declare it complete.”

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