2

Beginnings

 

September 15 saw the remaining two shuttles descend from orbit with eight more people each. By mid afternoon all forty persons who had been on Columbus 6 had safely descended to Aurorae Outpost. Meanwhile, in orbit, two Lifters, full of oxygen and methane propellant manufactured from the rocks of Phobos, fired their engines and pushed two Interplanetary Transit Vehicles or ITVs each on trajectories that would take them into the asteroid belt, then back to the Earth. Ion engines on the ITVs would speed them up, getting them back to Earth in about sixteen months. Each carried two tonnes of gold that had been wrested from Cassini’s gold-bearing rock and regolith.

An inaugural dinner marked the end of the arrival process. Will went through the buffet line with Marshall, his six and a half year old son; Ethel followed with Lizzie, who was almost four. In line in front of Will was Muhammad Rahmani and Emily Scoville, the British pilot who had commanded Columbus 6.

“What an incredible spread!” Emily exclaimed to Will, as they reached the end of the buffet. “Chicken, turkey, tilapia, catfish, rabbit, beef, pork; the meat alone amazes me! The pastas, breads, casseroles, vegetable dishes, desserts; it’s mind blowing!”

“It’s gotten a lot better since we arrived ten and a half years ago. In 2021 we could manage ten species of vegetables, wheat, corn, rice, rabbits, and chickens, and we couldn’t make combinations very well. Local beef became available last fall; we imported steak until then. The biome created the quantity of plant waste necessary to support a few cows, and enough area to support a bee hive able to make honey.”

“No sugar cane, though.”

“No, but last columbiad we imported sugar beets.”

“And we brought coffee and coca trees; rather important additions.”

“Yes, but luxuries.”

Emily eyed the payment area. There were two payment devices set up; one put one’s tray in at one end and it slowly moved through the device, emerging the other end ten seconds later, with a list of items on the tray and the price of each displayed on a screen. But they had cloths thrown over them. “Oh, we don’t have to pay? What a relief; this is so rich, it would be incredibly expensive!”

“The inaugural dinner’s on the house; it’s a public event.”

“Good. When I ran my breakfast through the machine this morning, I thought I’d die! It was $123!”

“If you think you were shocked, consider how everyone here felt! Food was free until yestersol. But now we have to charge for food, water, electricity, and communications because some of the people here are not employees of the Commission. Food averages about $400 per sol. Our salaries just increased by $150,000 per year, but that doesn’t quite cover the new charges, so everyone’s grumbling.”

“I can’t blame them; but that’s capitalism for you.”

“True.” Will turned to the drinks table and grabbed a glass of juice for Marshall and a soft drink for himself. He held it up with glee. “We ran out of Coke and Pepsi completely six months ago, so it’s nice to be restocked. So, how was the flight out?”

They began to walk toward a table. “Fairly uneventful,” replied Emily. “We had Consolidated in one ITV and Muller Mining in another, and they asked to be set on different time schedules so that they rarely overlapped with each other in the public spaces. We had some tensions with the four Chinese and with the Arabic speaking crew; they naturally spoke their own languages in the middeck and others resented it. Muhammad proved immensely helpful to me in making the Muslims comfortable.”

“Overall, it went pretty well,” added Muhammad Rahmani.

“I’m impressed by the diversity of the crew; you brought people from twenty-one nations. The male to female ratio is one of the best we’ve seen, too.”

“Yes, the crew was forty percent female. The mix has had positive results. Some relationships seem to have been started; someone dubbed the flight ‘the love boat’ as a result.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Cornelius Beyer and Tatiana Gavrilova have become quite close; and Sheila Burns and Arieh Feldman; and Ni Gao and Marge Bailey. The latter relationship’s interesting because Marge is one of Consolidated’s workers and Ni Gao is Chinese, and those groups usually don’t mix. I think Bruce has given Marge a hard time about the relationship. I mention all of this to you confidentially, of course, since you’re commander. In addition to these three relationships, we had nine married couples on board. It reminded me a bit of Columbus 2, where eventually everyone was married or partnered up except Shinji.”

“Yes, that was remarkable.” They got to the table and sat down; Muhammad sat next to Emily and Will suspected she had failed to mention a relationship of her own. “So, Emily, you’re staying just one cycle?”

“Yes. My kids are grown, but I’m not ready to cut off my relationship with them yet. Besides, someone has to fly the ITVs back. I think only three or four of the forty plan to return at the end of the columbiad.”

“Well, while you’re here you can do just about anything you want. You’ve got that kind of seniority; you’ve been flying fifteen years.”

“Thank you. I want to do some research on meteorites; as you know, I did quite a bit on the moon, and the supply here is enriched a bit in materials from the outer solar system. From the sound of things, there’s going to be a great increase in recovery of nickel-iron meteorites for nickel steel, platinum group extraction, and copper refinement, so I’d like to work on that.”

Will nodded. “We can do that. The copper refining will take place at Cassini, most likely; the Joberg epithermal deposit has some local enrichments in malachite ore, and the cheapest extraction method is to crush the malachite and put it in a carbonic acid bath with meteoritic iron. If you want to supervise that process part of the time, that will get you to Cassini. And frankly we could use someone who knows the mining teams to help coordinate our support with them.”

Emily rolled her eyes, but then nodded. “They’re a pain. But I can handle them.”

Just then Ethel arrived with Lizzie, who had insisted on carrying her own tray. Ethel sat across from Emily; they were old friends. Within thirty seconds they were immersed in a deep conversation.

Will watched them plunge into their conversation and turned to make sure the kids were eating alright. Lizzie could not yet be ignored. So he watched her in particular.

A man with oriental features approached and Will struggled to remember his name. “Ananda Thanarat, Commander,” he said, offering his hand very gently.

“That’s right; I’m sorry I forgot your name. Welcome to Mars. You do lots of things, if I recall.”

“Mathematics is my area, with a secondary focus on artificial intelligence. I doubt I’ll use it much, though there’s quite a rush for telerobotic operations.”

“I wouldn’t exclude a.i.; we will need it soon enough. A few years ago I would have said that we can let math be done on Earth for us, but the bigger the operation here, the more we need to do things ourselves. We could already use some local expertise on further developing the artificial intelligence of our machines.”

“I agree; this is the most automated society ever to exist. The other thing I wanted to say, Commander, is Alláh-u-Abhá.”

Will smiled broadly. Oh? You’re a Bahá'í? Alláh-u-Abhá!” Will exclaimed the Bahá'í greeting quite loudly and unembarrassedly. He leaned over and gave Ananda a hug.

“Thank you, Commander. I gather there are two Bahá'ís here?”

“No, three; Enrique Delrio became a Bahá'í less than a year ago. And now we have you as well, and of course Marshall and Liz are Bahá'ís, so that’s six! It’s quite a strong group now! We’ll have to organize more events.”

“That would be great. I’ve mentioned the Faith to a few people and I think there are two or three who’d like to come to a meeting.”

“Marvelous. As you may know, we have interfaith devotional gatherings every Sunsol at 11 a.m. The Bahá'í spirit was one of the inspirers of this gathering. Maybe you can help organize them.”

“Perhaps; I would be honored to assist.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Please sit.” Will pointed to an empty seat at the table, so Ananda, who was from Thailand, joined them. Shortly thereafter Xiaopeng Cai, a Chinese eobiologist, sat as well, followed by Fatima and Husni Hijazi, a couple who were from Palestine and Saudi Arabia respectively. “How marvelous that both an Israeli and a Palestinian could fly here on the same flight,” noted Xioapeng.

Fatima smiled shyly. “Husni and I are delighted that we could stay together. He has always wants to go to Mars.” She spoke with a distinctive accent; very crisp and clearly enunciated, somewhere between an English, an American, and an Indian accent. “Once he was selected, the word went out that Mars needed an elementary school teacher, and I have a doctorate in that very field. But of course, Palestine doesn’t have the resources to sponsor an astronaut. Fortunately, a wealthy Saudi and two wealthy Palestinians cooperated to sponsor me as well.”

“We’re delighted you’re here,” exclaimed Will. “We can’t wait to get first grade started. Marshall’s six, and Sam turns six in January.”

“So I hear. When shall we begin school?” asked Fatima.

“How about Monsol? It’s September; the usual time for classes to start anyway. We’ve got a classroom just about ready.”

“Monsol it is, then. But that’s how many days—sols—from now; four?”

“Three. This sol’s Frisol, even though it’s Thursday on the Earth, or at least on most of Earth.”

“Getting used to a 24.6 hour day—I mean, sol—will take some time.”

“I’m sure. The Muslims here have been considering Frisol their sabbath, if I can use that term; Christians have used Sunsol. Otherwise, after 36 days of seven-day weeks, you’d go to bed on a Monday night and wake up the next morning on a Wednesday! Eventually you’ll have two Fridays that are only six days apart, or they’ll be 13 days apart because Friday was the day that got skipped!”

“It would be confusing.” agreed Husni Hijazi. He was Saudi, and a geologist. “On the other hand, clocks go to 24:39:35 before they switch to 0:00!”

“Yes, which is why we don’t have any clocks with hands; with chronometers, we can keep the same minute and second as Earth, which has scientific value. It also means that Mars has twenty-five time zones”

“At least the times of prayer are not significantly effected,” noted Fatima. “We have sunrise, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and evening, after all!”

“Ruhullah doesn’t take any chances,” said Will. “Whenever we lose an entire day compared to Earth, he ‘makes up’ the day’s prayers.”

“I may want to do that, too,” said Husni. “I gather Ramadan is held at the same time as on Earth?”

Will nodded. “Ruhullah uses the Tehran times for the start and end of Ramadan, and since an entire day of time differences takes 36 days to accumulate, the fast ends up being the same number of days here as on Earth. The day is a bit longer, but twilight is much shorter, and since Muslims fast from first to last light, it ends up being about the same, or maybe a bit less here!”

“You’re quite an expert on Islam, Commander,” said Husni. “What has caused your interest?”

“I am a student of all the religions, Dr. Hijazi.”

“And you are a Bahá'í, right?” asked Fatima.

Will hadn’t wanted to bring up his religion because Muslims persecuted Bahá'ís in many countries, and he didn’t want to cause embarrassment. He nodded.

Husni smiled, but looked stiff and uncomfortable. “I had no idea, Commander. Your prophet was a Muslim.”

“Indeed he was,” agreed Will.

There was an awkward silence. Will raised his coffee cup. “Who wants coffee?” He took requests, then walked to the refreshment table and picked up a tray to carry everything back. He talked briefly to Alma and Johann Werner, two of the German employees of Muller Mining. As he was about to squeeze the last cups of coffee onto the tray, Andries Underwood approached.

“Are you sure you can get all of them?”

“I think so.”

“Let me help, and it’s a chance to complain.” Andries began to transfer half the cups to another tray. “Curry’s driving me crazy. He wants to excavate 100 tonnes of gold in the next twenty-six months. He wants to be on the way to Cassini early next week, at the latest; preferably by shuttle. And he wants more power; the five solar power units won’t give a sustained 750 kilowatts of electricity, so he wants a sixth unit.”

Will shook his head. “Just tell him I have to approve everything and he should bug me instead. But obviously we can’t give him that much. We’re importing fifteen solar power units and Cassini’s getting ten of them. We need some here at Aurorae.”

“I know, and I told him. His answer’s always the same; ‘look, we can make $500 million for you and $500 million for us, so why can’t you do this?’”

“Because gold isn’t everything. I’ll talk to him.”

“Thanks.”

Will walked back to his table and with Andries assisting, distributed the coffees. Almost everyone had finished eating, so it was time for Will to give his welcoming speech. He rose and walked to the front, where he solemnly rang the Outpost’s bell, which had been brought to the stage for the occasion.

It was not rung very often and immediately got everyone’s attention. They turned to the stage.

“Good evening, everyone,” Will began. “Tonight we celebrate the safe arrival of forty more people to Mars. Our population, previously forty-four adults and twelve children, is now ninety-six. No one could have imagined, ten and a half years ago when Columbus 1 first reached the Red Planet, that Mars would have almost one hundred residents a decade later!

“When Columbus 1 arrived it established Aurorae Outpost, and Mars had a single habitation occupied by six people. Four years later ‘the Outpost’ as it was called, had grown to twenty-three adults and one child, and the need to register a birth and sell land around it led to the declaration of a civil government for the Borough of Aurorae. Someone this morning asked me why the term ‘borough’ was chosen, since it refers to a city or a small section of a city, such as the five boroughs of New York City. Alaska has boroughs also, and they are the equivalent of counties; they are very large, sparsely populated areas. Not all of Alaska falls within a borough, either. It seemed to be a perfect term because at the time we didn’t know whether a borough would become the equivalent of a city or township, or whether it would be subdivided into towns and cities and thus become the equivalent of a state or province. We still don’t know the answer to that question.

“About Columbus 3, ‘personnel’ here began to feel and refer to themselves as ‘residents.’ The idea of a brief, two or four year stay to explore was replaced by the idea of settling down here and starting families. The Outpost began to feel like a permanent place; a hamlet or village.

“For four years, the Borough of Aurorae continued to be our only civil unit, and was usually called ‘the Outpost.’ The population continued to grow, and the residents began more and more to feel that they were a sort of citizen of Mars. This doesn’t mean we have ceased to be Chinese, Europeans, or Americans; rather, that we have added a new identity to our national identities, an identity shaped by sols instead of days, annums and columbiads as well as years, greenhouses and biomes rather than farms and housing complexes, a long time delay to watch our native television and talk to our loved ones instead of instant communication.

“Then last year a dust storm grounded the sunwings and shuttles for five months, preventing most surface exploration—because it blocked our emergency rescue ability—the public’s interest dipped, our funding shrank, and we had to close the financial gap through gold prospecting. In the process of checking the remoting sensing data for what appeared to be the most important gold terrains on Mars, we found what may be the largest gold supply in the solar system. The geologists are now saying that Cassini may have as much as three billion troy ounces of gold; 90,000 tonnes, worth almost a trillion dollars. Of course, much of that may not be profitable to recover, as they are looking at gold concentrations as low as ten parts per million, which translates into ten tonnes of gold per million tonnes of rock. The ongoing exploration of Dawes suggests that it may have a mere billion troy ounces. Meridiani and several other regions on Mars are rich as well.

“Our situation here changed overnight. Shipping costs used to be so high, gold could not be recovered and shipped back to Earth profitably. Now we can make a profit on gold if the recovery costs are kept low enough, which means finding and going after only the richest deposits. Columbus 6 went from a struggling thirty-two to forty crew. Two companies sent the first non-Commission staff to Mars. Even more significantly, Mars is gaining a second outpost and a second borough, six thousand kilometers from the first. Aurorae is no longer ‘the Outpost.’ Finally, Mars is no longer an outpost; Mars is now a ‘colony’ and we are ‘colonists’ as well as ‘residents.’ More language for us to get used to.

“The governing structure will change in response. Cassini, like Aurorae, will need to elect a borough clerk and chair. Both boroughs will have to elect a treasurer for the first time. Mars Colony may soon need a clerk, chair, and treasurer as well. In another two or three columbiads, Mars will probably have over two hundred people and the time may come to elect Borough Councils, which can meet jointly to serve as a Colonial Council.

“In short, Mars is moving in directions that no one would have expected in less than two decades. The keys to our continued growth are two: a continued decline in transportation costs, and viable exports. The combination was essential for the Europeanization of the Americas and will be essential here as well. It appears we have the second key in place: gold. We can complain about the dust pollution it will cause in the Cassini area, the holes it will rip in the ground, the greed it represents, the ways it will distort our priorities here, but there will be no getting around one fact: Mars will grow. A Mars with a thousand people will do much more exploring than a Mars with one hundred. Mars with a thousand will have a more comfortable life than Mars with one hundred.

“So we will have adjustments to make. We must keep our focus on certain priorities, however: that this world will maintain peace, will strive for justice, will seek a life that is not just comfortable but happy, and that Mars will aim become an example to old Earth of a place where human beings from many cultures and religions can live together well. These Martian values are human values, and Mars can become a vehicle for demonstrating them. If we succeed, they may be our greatest export of all.”

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

It was a busy weekend at Aurorae. Cargo was unpacked and stored, the store was filled with new goods and therefore shoppers, new arrivals set up their flats if they had them or their rooms if they didn’t, crafts and furniture privately made was displayed and sold at the Satursol flea market, the new arrivals and old residents got to know each other, the Satursol evening concert and dance was crowded, the Sunsol morning interfaith devotional program was packed, hiking trails outside the Outpost were busy, and the Aurorae golf course, laid out carefully over the last four years by Roger Anderson and other members of the Aurorae golf club, was active.

Monsol marked the beginning of a month of training, safety drills, and team-building. It was inaugurated by another event: the opening of Mariner Institute of Technology or MarTech.

Will and Ethel had to take Marshall to school on their way to the inauguration. The three of them walked to the second floor of Renfrew Hall, which once had held their apartment but now was half filled with rooms for child care. They were surprised to see that their old living room—a space four meters deep and four wide—was now the classroom. Fatima Hijazi had a desk near the door; the two boys sat at a table between her and the window. Two attachés sat on the table. A plastic whiteboard occupied one wall with an assortment of colored markers in the tray below. The opposite wall had big maps of Earth and Mars.

“Welcome to your classroom!” said Fatima.

“I get my own attaché!” said Marshall, seeing the two computer/communicators that were standard issue for the adults on Mars. He ran to the table. “I want the red one!”

“That’s fine,” replied Fatima. She turned to Will and Ethel. “Will he be eating lunch with you?”

“Yes,” said Ethel. “You may have noticed that all four of us eat together at the same table for lunch every sol.”

“I did notice. Good, that means I have lunch free; I may need it to plan afternoon lessons! They’ll be playing in the yard starting at four every sol. Madhu told me Sammie still naps many afternoons.”

“He can take a nap too, if you can convince him,” replied Ethel. “But good luck!”

“I’m not going to sleep,” replied Marshall. “Do I get to take the attaché home?”

“Yes, you do,” replied Fatima. “It’s yours.”

“We had better say goodbye,” said Ethel. “Have fun, dear.”

I will, mom. I love you.” Marshall kissed his mom and dad, then turned back to his attaché. Ethel looked at Will, surprised; he shrugged and they walked out.

“That was easy,” said Will. “But then, he’s been in school up here for a year and a half, and he’s met Fatima several times.”

Ethel nodded. There were tears in her eyes.

“What is it?”

“My baby’s going to school.”

Will smiled. “I know. He’s growing up, my dear. He’s growing up.”

He hugged his wife, then kept his arm around her as they strode to Yalta, across the yard, and through the tunnel to Catalina.

A crowd was already filling the folding chairs in front of building two, which made a nice backdrop for an inauguration even though it was empty. MarTech had its own entrance at the eastern end of the building, big, arched, and grand. Inside the arch would be a lobby and a spiral ramp descending sharply to the basement or rising sharply to the top floor; in Martian gravity, ramps could be much steeper than on Earth. MarTech would start small, with one classroom on the top floor, six offices on the ground floor, and another classroom in the basement or “garden” level. Perhaps someday it would grow to fill the entire building, then the entire biome, then other biomes as well.

Will and Ethel had dressed in their best clothes, but some attending wore academic regalia that they had imported from Earth. The robes looked incongruous in the setting. The six-person “Outpost Orchestra” was warming up.

Once the seats were all filled, Will, Dr. Martha Vickers, and Dr. Enlai Tang stepped forward and sat in the three chairs in front of a big screen. Martha and Enlai had both managed to get their academic regalia from Earth; as the planners of the university, they were also its principal enthusiasts. Martha nodded to the orchestra and it began to play “Pomp and Circumstance.” When it ended Martha stood, welcomed everyone, and gave the history of the idea and the plans. Enlai followed, speaking about the technological progress that Mars exploration represented and the great intellectual capacities already present.

Everyone turned to the screen to watch a series of videotaped welcomes from the presidents of several universities across the Earth, as well as the American Secretary of Education, the European Union’s Minister of Education, and the Mars Commission’s Commissioner. Then it was Will Elliott’s turn. He walked to the lectern.

“I’ll have to have my academic robes flown up on Columbus 7,” he began. “In 1630, a thousand religious refugees from England crossed the ocean to New England and in a matter of months had set up Boston and six townships around that metropolis. Every spring several thousand more Puritans followed, and in 1636, having established their governments, towns, farms, and industry, they turned to education. Their legislature chartered Harvard College, which became the oldest and most famous institution of education in the nation that their descendants built. For the first decade of its existence, however, Harvard was a tiny institution with one or two professors and a dozen students, housed in a single building on a large yard used by grazing cattle, on which sat a well from which they drew their water.

“MarTech clearly grows from similarly humble beginnings. It began in year ten, rather than year six, and when the population supporting it was less than one hundred, rather than several thousand. However, it already has twenty part-time faculty, and since some of them were already supervising theses and giving courses, it already has several dozen students on two planets and a dozen courses. Because of the faculty, it already has reciprocal agreements with Stanford, Harvard, MIT, the Sorbonne, Moscow State University, Tokyo University, Louvain University, and a half dozen other prestigious institutions. It can already offer Ph.D.s in Martian geology, planetary geology, exobiology, Martian eobiology, ecology systems, and mechanical engineering. In short, even though it started later than seventeenth-century Harvard, it is already growing faster.

“The promise of this institution lies in the future. Mars is slated to make a great contribution to human culture and civilization. We do not know what it will contribute or when, though our growth rate suggests its contributions will come sooner than we had thought. What we can be sure of is that MarTech will be central to Mars’s contributions to human progress. This university will galvanize our scientific exploration, will pull together our engineering discoveries, and will serve as a focus for the development of our arts and culture. Perhaps someday MarTech will be the place people go to prepare for great feats of exploration of our solar system and beyond. It may be the legacy of Mars to become the center of the expansion of human consciousness outward into space, for where better can people appreciate the importance of exploration than on a world founded upon it? If that comes to pass, MarTech will be the educational engine making that role possible, directing it and galvanizing it.

“So this sol we stand on the threshold of powerful dreams. Our optimism, our community spirit, our hope for the future will drive MarTech forward, and MarTech in turn will pull us forward. The importance of this sol is that feedback loop begins. Let all of us gathered here this sol pledge some effort to make this university grow. Thank you.”

Will stepped away from the lectern to sustained applause; the audience clearly liked his speech. He walked over to Martha, Martech’s President, and Enlai, its Vice President for development. Enlai picked up a very large pair of scissors and the three of them moved to the red ribbon that blocked the arched doorway. Together, slowly, the three of them cut the ribbon.

Everyone applauded and the orchestra struck up “pomp and circumstance” again; it was the only relevant piece of music they knew. Everyone began to walk to the refreshment tables.

“Commander, when will I ever be able to take my people to Cassini?” Bruce Curry sounded very frustrated, on the verge of angry.

“Mr. Curry, the next month is devoted to safety and other training exercises. You’ve known that for at least eight months. The cargo won’t be deorbited for at least three weeks anyway. So I suggest you not worry about it too much.”

“Commander, do you want a half billion bucks or not? Because that’s what I can dig up for the Commission if I have enough time. Otherwise, you’re losing money. Time is money.”

“Mr. Curry, money is not our only concern here; a higher priority is safety.”

“We don’t need a month of training. Even two weeks may be more than we need. We were training during the entire six-month voyage, after all. Please, Commander, see what you can do. We’re itching to get to Cassini and get started.”

“If we can wait, we can plan better.”

“We’ve been planning for over a year. I submit it’s now time for action.”

Will shook his head. “I can’t guarantee anything.”

“What about a biome for Cassini?”

“I’m working on that.”

Curry scowled. “Well, you fritter away your time opening imaginary universities in front of buildings that are just a shell. I want to act.” He turned and walked away.

Will watched him go, wondering how to deal with Curry. Routing messages via the Commission and Muller Mining hadn’t worked. Ignoring him was difficult.

Alexandra walked up. “What did he want? The Cassini biome?”

“That was request number two. Number one was an immediate transport to Cassini, so they could get started.”

“They’ve got to get trained in safety first. We can do training much easier here than in a tank of water on Earth. But I do have an idea for a biome, if you’re interested.”

“Sure.” There was surprise in his voice.

“Well, if they’re willing to see the biome evolve over a two or three year time frame, we could get something started in a month or two. We could go down with two mobilhabs and two conestogas, plus several rangers. We’d start by setting up the two building bubbles to serve as temporary housing; they’d have to be coved by plastic sheeting, just like the dacha, and connected together for extra safety. We could set up tents and portable showers inside for the crew. We wouldn’t even need to recycle the water because we could pour the waste water outside and extract more from Cassini’s permafrost well. A crew of a dozen, living inside the bubbles, could drive nickel-steel pilings and pour a duricrete foundation for the biome in about two months. We wouldn’t bother with much excavation; we can always erect a metal frame around the biome later and pile reg against it. Once we have the foundation poured, we could place the main enclosure, inflate it, take down our camp and deflate the bubbles, transfer them inside the enclosure, inflate them, and set up our camp inside bubble 2. The crew could build building one, but complete and finish just the first floor; that’d be plenty of room for up to sixteen crew to live. The open second floor could be used for cooking, eating, and relaxing. We could get the outer enclosure in place in two months using a dozen people and about ten tonnes of materials, mostly nickel-steel. Building one would take about a dozen people, two months, and fifty tonnes of materials to get in a usable but semi-finished state. After that, we could continue the construction work with two or three workers only and a shipment of twenty tonnes of materials every month or two. The biome would slowly take shape, but slowly would be plenty.”

“It would be.” Will thought. “Personally, I’m committed to seeing Cassini get a biome. I really don’t like the idea of competition for Aurorae, but Cassini has the gold, so it deserves special consideration. The issue is when. Flesh out your plan, okay, Alexandra? Opposing a biome for Cassini doesn’t make sense; it looks petty. Let’s come up with a reasonable schedule that’s doable over the long distances.”

 

© 2004 Robert H. Stockman

 

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