13

Contracts

For the next week, Will spent eight hours of every sol outside with the other eight personnel at Cassini. Some ran the drill and prepared explosives; every other sol they set off a series of blasts that tore a great hole in the Pretoria conglomerate and exposed hundreds of tonnes of rocks to examination. Others scoured Pretoria for loose nuggets, or nuggets that could be pried loose in an hour or so. Yet others set out in rangers and rode north or south along the ancient vallis, sampling the sediments and searching for other rich gold deposits. Finally, a team set out across the highlands to follow the exposures of the Joburg intrusion, sampling the regolith and the ejecta from craters for gold. They, too, found scattered nuggets, and one spot where rotten igneous rock could be blasted apart with explosives to free up in situ gold. They collected another tonne of nuggets. It was an exciting, rewarding period.

Each late afternoon and half the night Will retreated to the Mobilhab’s driver’s cab to receive and send emails, voicemails, and videomails. Negotiations had started with a third company as well, the Sibir Resources Company in Moscow, know as Sibireco. Each offered a special bonus for an exclusive contract, which Morgan vetoed after Dvorkin came close to closing a deal with Consolidated. After that, it became a question of how many companies would get a deal and who would offer the most; the bidding forced the Commission to raise its contribution somewhat as well.

“It looks like Sibireco’s dropping out,” Yevgeny told Will one night. “They thought their strength was their experience operating during the Siberian winter, but now that they’ve looked at the situation more closely, it appears that Siberia is not a very useful training ground. Consolidated has immense experience all over the Earth and vast resources. Muller Mining is in the running because they love Mars, their expertise is robotic mining, and they’re willing to risk the entire company.”

“Muller owns most of it, right?”

“He and his daughters. The other stock holders are furious; their stock is dropping in value. Muller doesn’t care. Consolidated’s worried as well; their stock has dropped a few percent.”

“But that must be a coincidence,” replied Will. “I understand the price of gold has dropped ten percent, to $280 per ounce, and the analysts are saying it’s because of the speculation about Martian gold entering the market!”

“Uncertainty, Will,” replied Yevgeny. “That’s what’s driving prices. If we succeed very, very big, it’s remotely possible we could increase the supply enough to effect the price. Everyone says that’ll be decades away; we’d have to export something like 300 tonnes of gold per year to have a noticeable effect on the market! But that possibility of a big success causes uncertainty. And the possibility of a big failure causes uncertainty about Muller A.G.’s stock price, pushing it down.”

“Ah, I see, there is a connection. How’s Mich Dvorkin holding up?”

“He looks utterly exhausted. Morgan’s interfering in an area he doesn’t know and Dvorkin’s always afraid he will get undermined by the Commissioner. The outside consultants Morgan called in to make sure the Commission doesn’t get a raw deal have messed up the chemistry, too; the other negotiators trusted Dvorkin and now they feel they can’t make a good faith offer without worrying about a lowball response. So the negotiations are a mess. And everyone’s under immense time pressure; Mars and Earth are moving inexorably towards opposition on May 4, 2031. I told Mich he had to talk to Morgan about the problem, and if he couldn’t he had to talk to Louisa to talk to Morgan for him. That’s a conversation we can’t have with the Commissioner.”

“I agree; it requires spontaneity, not video soundbites. Urge him to talk to Morgan directly. We can’t get this messed up. What are the offers up to, Yevgeny?”

“The gold recovery estimates are holding up and Sibireco, Consolidated, and Muller all came up with roughly the same figures; they’ll invest $1 billion to fly four people here, plus develop the mining equipment, plus fly it and some consumables here over three columbiads. But the result will be five hundred tonnes of gold exports, worth $5 billion on earth. If we export it over six years, we’ll be humanity’s ninth or tenth largest gold producer. Our costs will be less because we don’t have to develop and build the mining equipment, just the biomes, roads, sunwings, shuttles, and other things we already have. The negotiations now say the Commission will get $1 billion up front for the lease plus half the profits, which would be another $1.5 billion. If we split the contract between two companies, we’d get about half from each.”

“Add that to the income from national governments, and the Commission will be able to expand this place significantly. We’ll have to send a team up to Dawes in a few months, and we’ll have to reexamine the Candor deposits. There’s a new paper published on the web that identifies two other possible gold recovery districts, too.”

“It makes sense. Terrestrial companies mine 2,000 tonnes of gold per year from a few dozen localities, and Mars has about the same amount of dry land.” Yevgeny sighed. “I suspect this will be wrapped up in another week. A decision has to be made now, or it’ll be too late to get ready. What are your plans?”

“I’ll be here another week at least; I’m going out on a gold prospecting expedition. I haven’t been in the field a long time, and once I’m away from the kids, God bless them, I might as well make it last a while! We’re trying to define the geology of Cassini Borough better. Then, if I can, I’ll head north and see Deuteronilus Mensae for a few sols, then come back here and fly home.”

“That sounds fascinating. Roger has me on the list to rotate down in another month, so I guess I’ll be running the export department from the front of a portahab.”

“I’m using the front of the Mobilhab as an office. I’d better run; thanks for the update.”

“Sure. Talk to you tomorrow. Bye.”

“Bye.” Will closed the line and turned to various reports. Lisa was perpetually updating him about the woes of running the ecology of Yalta; finally the agricultural productivity was climbing to where it should be and the crops were becoming more diverse in response, with more space for spices and slow-growing species. Alexandra sent a report about Catalina; the space into which the new biome would be inflated was now enclosed by duricrete walls and a floor, and the metal tunnel and airlock connecting it to Yalta was finished. Madhu sent a report about the completion of her first labyrinth art design. Enlai and Martha sent him a report about the plans for MarTech; a team of lawyers in Houston were now drawing up the institution’s charter.

Finished, Will opened the door—the driver’s cab was its own airtight cabin—and walked into the main area. Kevin Dunbar was playing a card game and flirting with Kimberly Irion, who was enjoying the game and ignoring the interest. Four other crewmembers were already upstairs. Andries and Tina were sitting at the other table downstairs finishing cups of tea.

“How’s everything?” Andries asked.

Will nodded. “Negotiations are progressing. It sounds like we could be exporting almost as much gold as South Africa in a few years.”

“Oh, I think so. The Joberg-Pretoria deposit has a huge amount of gold. And the hydrothermal body we were looking at this sol has a lot of potential; I’m calling it ‘Klondike.’ We might as well use names from the old gold rushes on earth. I don’t see any placer deposits associated with it, but the intrusion has a lot of gold in it.”

“Write it up. The more gold we’re sure of, the better.”

“We’re going back tomorrow morning,” added Tina. “And a sunwing is scheduled to take very low-level sensing flights; the reflection spectra can be scanned for gold signatures.”

“They can be now; no one had programmed the software to look for it before!” agreed Will.

Andries rose. “Well, I think I’m retiring. Dawn comes pretty early.”

“Good idea.” Tina stood up also.

Will nodded. “Good night; rest well.” The two of them headed into the Mobilhab’s airlock, which led to docking unit and then to the portahab, the small wheeled inflatable habitation they were staying in. Will turned to the stairs. He headed up to his cubicle.

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After ten sols of gold prospecting, Will, Kevin, and Qingtian took a ranger up the Cassini Trail—so called because it ran from the Virgo Trail to the Circumnavigational Trail, with Cassini in between—to the northeastern expedition. Roger Anderson, a Mobilhab, two rangers, and five other crewmembers had pushed Virgo eastward five hundred kilometers through Deuteronilus Mensae, the mesa-like erosional remnants left from the retreat of the edge of the highlands. A billion years of floods, groundwater sapping, and wave erosion had cut back the highlands several hundred kilometers. The two-sol drive was a fascinating tour of Martian geology. Anderson’s Mobilhab was parked in a channel between two mensae with spectacular sedimentary strata exposed on their sides, on the edge of a dune field. Right after the big dinner that marked their arrival, Morgan sent a videomail. Will retreated into the driver’s cab to listen.

“Will, it’s now official. The negotiations have taken much longer than expected, but Mich engineered a breakthrough last night, based on the companys’ relative strengths that neither wanted to admit to. Muller Mining, A.G., gets an exclusive lease of the Joberg intrusion. Their strength is not placer mining, but robotic digging and use of the cyanide process to extract gold from the crushed rock. Consolidated gets an exclusive contract on the Pretoria conglomerate; their expertise is placer mining, and they designed the liquid carbon dioxide centrifuge you all tried out on Candor two years ago, which worked pretty well. Both companies are buying ten-year options on other areas as well: Muller’s taking Klondike and Consolidated is taking the entire vallis for fifty kilometers downstream of Pretoria, where gold has been found. Since they’re working on different deposits, the total gold yield they expect is higher than either company individually. We’re looking at up to 1,500 tonnes over a fifteen-year period, or 15 billion dollars. Both companies will fly four workers here and we’ll provide four more to each for support and maintenance services. Both are flying about twenty tonnes of equipment on Columbus 6, and may fly a similar quantity on future missions. Both are paying us $750 million over the next year as a down payment and we’re splitting the subsequent profit in both cases. We get to keep all the profits on gold mining until their crews reach Mars.

“Congratulations on all your work determining the extent of the gold reserve and your hard work to extract gold for the Columbus 5 return flight. The news of the contracts will be released momentarily—though not the financials—so you can inform your crew of our success. Goodbye.”

Will sent Morgan a quick acknowledgement thanking him for the effort, then taped a very simple video message and sent it to the crew. When he stepped out of the driver’s cabin, he found everyone watching his announcement on the room’s big screen. When it finished everyone cheered and applauded. Will smiled.

“That didn’t take long!”

“But what does it mean?” asked Roger. “Will Cassini become the new capital and largest settlement on Mars, or will it remain a mining camp?”

“Telerobotics will allow us to do a lot,” noted Kevin. “Cassini could be just a repair and maintenance facility.”

“I doubt Muller and Consolidated will want that,” replied Will. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

“How long before miners outnumber the rest of us?” speculated Roger.

“That’s a very good question, and we don’t know the answer to that, either. The mining operation will require sixteen personnel altogether.”

“And we can fly thirty, right?” asked Lal.

Will shook his head. “The public interest in Mars has been pushed up somewhat and it appears more countries may respond to the Commission’s invitation to send persons. We’re sending six ITVs and three shuttles, but they’ll be accompanied by a ‘interplanetary transit annex’ thirty meters long and six in diameter. The ITVs are receiving new, more robust life support systems that recycle the wastes of six people easily and eight in an emergency. As a result, Columbus 6 could accommodate thirty-nine or even forty.”

“They’re going to pack them in like sardines!” exclaimed Roger.

“No, it shouldn’t be that bad. The annex has a volume equal to about two ITVs. It’s a really clever addition to the mission; it’ll have its own heatshield and a small engine, so its uses are flexible.”

“We could have used it on Columbus 5,” commented Radha. “Columbus 6 will have greenhouses, too, to recycle waste and provide even more space.”

“Interplanetary transportation is improving and should get cheaper,” added Will. “There’s an article on the web you all may have seen. It says we can guess safely that Mars’s population will increase by at least forty per columbiad from now on; even though some personnel return home, others start families. Just that fact will increase our population to about five hundred by 2060. And it projects that the cost will drop to a third of the current level in twelve columbiads, which would make the cost about thirty million per person. Furthermore, it suggests we can guess that the current investment in Mars will stay at least the same as it is now, in which case, twelve columbiads from now we’ll be flying one hundred twenty people to Mars each opposition. It further notes that if spending on Mars grows at two percent per year—the same as earth’s rate of economic expansion—in twelve columbiads or twenty-six years spending will be about sixty percent more, which means we could be flying two hundred people here per columbiad. You can figure out the implications. Within our lifetimes, this world could have over a thousand people on it. Mars may be sending out its own missions to asteroids. So we have to work hard and safely, because we have an opportunity most people lack: the chance to build something really tangible, to watch real progress before our eyes because of our own sweat and dedication.”

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Will used his ten sols along the dichotomy well. After five sols with Roger’s eastwardly progressing expedition, he took a sunwing flight with Kevin to Peter Theodoulos’s westward progressing expedition, so that he could see what they were finding and get a sense of the terrain; Kevin had to do some routine maintenance on the nuke they had. Five sols later, the two of them flew back to Cassini in time for the shuttle flight back to Aurorae Outpost; in the meantime, Érico had driven back in a ranger. A sunwing had already landed at Cassini with three new crewmembers, so the total number of personnel in the northern hemisphere remained at sixteen. Will, Érico, and Kevin boarded the shuttle for the forty-five minute hop back to Aurorae Outpost.

“I suppose I should get used to zero gee,” Kevin said to Will after the shuttle engines shut off.

“Why, are you planning to fly back to Earth?”

“I think so. I hate to leave, especially since Jake’s here and I won’t see him. But Will, Jennie’s making any contact with Jake difficult. And I’m not someone who can live alone; I love to love women, Will. The pool here is really small.”

“True, but why not give Mars a little more time. A lot of new people will be coming; there will be women to meet. Aurorae Outpost will be that much bigger; we’ll have Catalina Biome finished. You won’t have to be so close. And we’ll have Cassini, so you won’t have to live in the same outpost any more. Maybe in the next two years your reasons for leaving will be resolved. And obviously, Jake needs you.”

“Maybe,” said Kevin. “I don’t know what to do, Will. This has been a very difficult two years.” A tear formed in one eye, the only hint of the emotional impact he had felt.

“I’m sure it’s been rough on Jennie and Jake, too. But sometimes fine people are unable to live with each other.”

“I know; Martha’s told that to me alone and to both Jennie and me together.” He shrugged. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll think about it.”

“Okay. Let me know if there’s anything more I can do.”

“Thanks. I’m glad we’ve had the last week or so together; we haven’t talked that much, but you have been a help.”

Will nodded and smiled. He unstrapped from his seat and floated over to the window facing “downward” toward Mars, so he could watch his beautiful adopted world roll by underneath.

Soon they had to strap in again. The shuttle reentered the Martian atmosphere at hypersonic speeds and Érico watched the computer as it steered the vehicle steadily toward the landing pad. Finally three engines came alive to burn off their last 5,400 kilometers per hour—half their velocity when the engines shut down after launch—and the shuttle settled down onto pad 6. Half an hour later, they were back inside the Outpost.

Will spent the rest of the morning with Ethel and the kids. That evening—as was traditional whenever a shuttle returned safely to the Outpost—there was a grand dinner. “Welcome back,” exclaimed Greg to Will, while the latter was sitting at his usual table with his family. “We missed you over the last month. The services weren’t quite the same.”

“My ‘sermon’ can always be rescheduled. From the sound of things, everything went just fine.”

“In fact, yes, we managed alright. I hear you flew over the so-called ‘Face of Mars.’”

“Not just flew over; Roger stopped his expedition at it and we did a live broadcast over the web, followed by live broadcast of the geological excursions in the area. Afterward the sunwing flew over it, yes, but by then I hope we had already set all the rumors to rest.”

“I suppose there will always be people who maintain it was a coverup,” said Greg with a smile. “What can you do? I understand there are still a few folks who insist no one has walked on the moon or Mars. How is everyone doing, up there in the northern highlands?”

“Pretty well. Lal and Radha are doing very well together, from what I could see. They said to me that the first year, they now realize, was actually difficult, and it is now getting easier! Andries and Tina have decided to get married in December just before Columbus 5 leaves. The Mobilhabs are improving morale; they provide so much more room for living on the move.”

“So I hear. Roger has me scheduled to go down for three months right after Columbus 5 leaves; I’m looking forward to it. Good to have you back.” Greg waved goodbye and headed back to his table.

“It’s good to see Greg,” said Will to Ethel, and she nodded back.

“I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable around Greg, right now,” said Enrique, who was eating with them that evening. “Every time I see him, I think he’s wondering why I’m not going to mass!”

“You are free to decide yourself; there is no compulsion in religion on Mars.”

“I know.”

“I hope we can start the study circle up, now that I’m back. There are new materials from the Wilmette Institute about several Bahá'í scriptures that we can review.”

Enrique looked at Will, surprised. “We never stopped the study circle while you were away! We finished the course on the Bahá'í concept of unity and started studying Ruhi book 35.”

“Really? I didn’t realize.”

“Enrique really wanted the course, so we completed it without you,” said Ethel. “That’s a consequence of going away a month.”

“It really was excellent,” agreed Enrique. “That’s the main reason I feel funny around Greg. I feel I am now ready to become a Bahá'í.”

“Really?” Will was surprised. He smiled. “You believe?”

“I do; I believe in Bahá'u'lláh as a divine messenger. I can’t say why I believe; I can’t even say when I started to believe. But I do believe.”

“Then you are a Bahá'í.” Ethel leaned over and gave him a kiss. “Welcome to the Bahá'í family, Enrique.”

“Thank you. Is there anything I should do?”

“The two of us can enroll you in the Faith,” replied Will. “Let’s sit down and review the basic beliefs of a Bahá'í some time, just to make sure there’s nothing that will surprise you. Then we’ll continue the study circle, except all three of us will be Bahá'ís.”

“Maybe I can give some Bahá'í classes to Marshall,” suggested Enrique. “He’s old enough for some basic classes, it’d help me get a better grasp of things if I taught him, and he probably needs to hear from someone other than his parents.”

“Great idea!” said Ethel. “I understand there’s lots of curricular materials on the web.”

“There may be other kids interested in coming, too,” added Will. “This is marvelous, Enrique. It’ll be good to have you in our little community.”

They continued chatting on various matters. Lisa stopped by and asked Will if he had enjoyed the beef; it was the first time they had slaughtered a cow raised on Mars, for they now had enough plant waste to feed cattle. Alexandra stopped by to schedule an inspection tour of Catalina; the outer bubble had been inflated just two sols before and was ready for interior construction and planting. Irina and Eammon stopped by to say hello and assure Will that the pregnancy with the twins was now going much better. Martha stopped by to tell Will that she and Enlai would have a charter for MarTech ready for debate by the town meeting in early October.

People began to drift out of the patio, heading to the store—which was always open after meals—or to their flats. Seeing that people were leaving, Érico walked to the stage and stood on it. “Can I have everyone’s attention quickly!” he shouted. “Please, can I have your attention!” He had to strain his voice a bit; in the one third atmosphere, sound did not travel as well as on Earth.

Conversations stopped and people turned to him. “I think this special evening deserves one further formality,” he said. “As we all know, this has been the strangest columbiad ever seen on Mars. First we were stuck inside for much of the dust storm season, then had an acute crisis of direction and financing, then resolved the crisis in a bold and decisive fashion. I think we all owe someone thanks for the resolution of the crisis: Commander Will Elliott. Could we all acknowledge our Commander with a round of applause.”

Everyone started clapping; many cheered as well. Will smiled and nodded, then stood and nodded, and quickly sat. But several began to shout “Speech! Speech!” and Érico responded by beckoning Will up to the stage, so he rose from his seat again and walked to the stage.

“Thank you, everyone. I’m not good at speeches, especially when they are spontaneous, so I’ll keep this one short. As Érico noted, we’ve never had a columbiad like this one. But I would stress our remarkable achievements. First, look at this magnificent place we have to reside in, with open space, trees, and comfortable, light-filled flats; we have indeed graduated from horticulture to ecology. Second, we now know both of this world’s moons intimately and have excellent facilities set up on them both, facilities that make a considerable expansion possible. Third, we now have a dacha for relaxing and getting away from it all. All of these accomplishments were made possible by the storm. Fourth, we are exploring the last major area of the planet that was heretofore unknown: the northern highlands. Fifth, we now have historic, signed contracts with two very capable private firms to begin exports of gold from Mars, something that will launch us into the top ten of gold exporting ‘countries’ and will move us half way to financial self sufficiency. This is a development no one could have anticipated as occurring in the tenth year of human settlement on the Red Planet; if anyone had guessed, most would have said such a development would await the turn of the next century. Sixth, Mars now moves from having one outpost and one borough to two.

“If there is any way to summarize our achievement during this columbiad, it is this: we have moved from outpost to colony. We are no longer a group of scientists and engineers discovering how human beings can live on Mars. We have basically figured out how to do that. We are now a colony of Mars residents laboring to establish an economy, society, and culture on this world. That task will take many decades; it started this year.”

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