3
Debates
One by one, the heads of staff arrived for their first meeting since Columbus 6 reached Mars. Lisa Kok was the first to reach the conference room in Renfrew Hall; she was Director of the Department of Ecology, which was responsible for growing the food, purifying the air and water, and maintaining the interior environment. Right behind her was Alexandra Lescov, Director of the Department of Construction, Fabrication, and Repair. Accompanying Alexandra was her husband, Yevgeny Lescov, Director of the Department of Exports. Four others arrived in close succession: Érico Lopes, Director of the Spaceport, Phobos, and Deimos; Andries Underwood, Director of Natural Resource Recovery; Tina Hvitmer, Director of Public Relations; and Emily Scoville, Commander of Cassini Outpost. Finally, Will Elliott arrived, talking to Martha Vickers, the Director of the Department of Health, Education, and Culture, and with Daniel Shapiro. Shapiro immediately began to connect his attaché to the large screen dominating one wall. Roger Anderson, Director of the Department of Science and Exploration, entered immediately thereafter.
“We all know each other, but I should at least offer an official welcome to our new members,” began Will. “I just received an email last night confirming the selection of Emily Scoville as Commander of Cassini Outpost. Because of the importance of Cassini in the operation, the commander of that outpost merits inclusion in our heads of staff. Daniel Shapiro is an addition based on practical needs. As all of you should know, Dan has a masters in accounting and considerable experience in banking before joining the Mars Commission a few years back. He will serve as the comptroller of our finances here in Mars; the Commission has a comptroller in Houston who is the overall boss. Dan will also serve as President of Mariner Bank; Silvio DiPonte has turned that task over to Dan so that he can do more in legal affairs for us, and can focus on building up Mars’s private sector. Dan will also serve as secretary of this group; he’ll prepare the agenda beforehand and the minutes afterward. Questions?”
“Welcome on Board,” said Érico to both of them.
An agenda suddenly appeared on the screen on the wall. “I thought we’d start with a round of brief reports, to update everyone and get new items on the agenda,” said Will. “Let’s just go around the table.” And he nodded at Lisa.
“Ecology’s adjusting to two events: a doubling of the population of Aurorae, with the strain on our food, oxygen, and water supplies it implies; and the expansion of our ecology into Catalina, which started several months ago when both rooftop farming areas were set up and planted. The expansion of the ecology has gone reasonably well, compared to setting up Yalta; we’ve managed the microorganism populations better and have avoided some of the population peaks and crashes. Columbus 6 has brought some new species and we’re getting them out right away. The butterflies just started to hatch yestersol and you will see them flying around the biome; they’ll be a beautiful addition.”
“They’re very nice,” agreed Roger. “Fatima’s excited; the first graders will have a more interesting nature project as a result.”
“If you want to call a biome ‘nature,’” commented Dan.
“As for the population increase,” continued Lisa, “all the newly arrived folks are taking very long showers and our water demand has tripled. The result is the accumulation of about two tonnes of waste water a sol in our outdoor storage tank. It’ll be six months or more before we can catch up with demand, then recycle the frozen waste water completely. An item I’d like on the agenda is obtaining an additional thirty kilowatts of power a sol; it would enable us to recycle three quarters of the waste water through evaporation.”
“That’ll be hard to provide,” replied Will. “But we’ll put it on the agenda. Alexandra?”
“Construction has been very slow because everyone’s still in training, but we have inflated the bubble for Catalina’s building 2 and have started to move in nickel-steel wall frames. Once I can devote a construction team to it, Catalina will be completed very fast. The question for me is whether Cassini gets a biome.”
Will nodded. “That’s on the agenda. Roger?”
“We’re pretty busy with the training, right now, but the exploration team has started to review its possible options. We plan to complete the Virgo and Pisces Trails, and I suspect we’ll extend the Cassini Trail northward to the polar layered terrain and southward to Hellas, maybe farther. If we did all three of those, it would be a substantial accomplishment. No part of Mars would be more than 1,000 kilometers from a trail, except some areas in the high latitudes.”
“And we’ve already started planning the Arctic and Antarctic Circle Trails,” added Érico. “The five shuttles are all in excellent shape. Thanks to the liquid oxygen and methane storage tanks we completed six months ago, we have enough fuel to launch three shuttles any time. With the newly arrived solar power units already set up, Aurorae can temporarily make about 3,000 kilowatts of power, and we’ve been pouring it into topping off the tanks. Embarcadero’s in good shape, with new equipment and a bigger ion propulsion system for station keeping. Columbus 6’s visits to the moons accomplished all maintenance and science goals and expanded the solar arrays to 100 kilowatts on both. Phobos and Deimos are at full production capacity; the Lifters there are refueling pretty fast as well. All three will be available when the automated cargo vehicles arrive in five sols, and we’ll be able to export a hundred tonnes of methane to Earth. It’s looking like we won’t need the scheduled maintenance and science flight to the moons eight months from now.”
“So, that’s the spaceport report,” said Will. “Andries?”
“As you heard, we have three ACVs aerobraking into orbit in five sols with twenty tonnes each of cargo. We’re holding onto two of them; Alexandra’s crew will make the spray-on ablatant heat shield material and Érico’s team will apply it some time between now and departure time, probably during the flight eight months from now. The third ACV will head back to Earth in two weeks with twenty-four tonnes of argon, worth about eighteen million dollars; not much, but every little bit helps. The other two ACVs might be able to fly as much as forty tonnes each, but I can’t imagine we’ll ever recover that much gold.”
“Curry’s determined to dig a hundred tonnes,” reminded Yevgeny. “And Muller feels some competition from him.”
“And we need the money,” added Dan.
“There’s no way Consolidated and Muller will hit a hundred tonnes together, let alone separately,” persisted Andries.
“Even so, we should be prepared,” said Dan. “The price of gold has been going up, just like other raw materials; it’s now twelve million per tonne. A hundred tonnes is $1.2 billion, half for us and half for the mining company.”
“It’s not possible for us to send back two hundred tonnes,” said Andries.
“Sure it is,” replied Yevgeny. “We’re getting two more Lifters; we’ll have five lunar based vehicles altogether, and each can hold seventy-six tonnes of fuel. The delta-vee to Earth from a Phobos transfer orbit is 1.4 kilometers per second and the delta-vee to achieve a very highly elliptical orbit around Earth is 0.7 kilometers per second. The Lifters could send almost four hundred tonnes to Earth, and we could use the heat shields for the gentlest, most gradual, incremental aerobraking, even with very light shields.”
“Let’s not assume the miners won’t accomplish a very ambitious goal, even if it is unlikely,” said Emily.
“It’s impossible.”
“Impossible or not, Emily’s approach is best,” exclaimed Will, intervening. “Martha?”
“My report really isn’t very interesting. The elementary school has started, day care has a new teacher, and MarTech is up and running. Aurorae clinic is now considered Aurorae Hospital; Arieh can do a wide range of surgery and once the rest of the equipment arrives, our trauma care capacity will be much stronger.”
“An important report,” replied Will. “Dan?”
“Columbus 7 is already in the planning stages and its size is dependent on our exports.” Shapiro spoke in a monotone, which immediately distracted the others from listening. “It’s scheduled to include forty people in six ITVs, three shuttles, four ACVs, two Lifters, and one middeck. We may also include one or two inflatable ‘annexes’ to provide additional housing space if they are ready in time. But the money we make will greatly influence whether it reaches that size and whether Columbus 8 will add two more ITVs and ten more people. The contracts with Consolidated and Muller Mining gained the Commission $1.5 billion last year, which was enough to cover the cost of the new Mars shuttle and most of both ITVs. Since we paid for them in cash, we can reduce the cost of transportation on Columbus 7 to about $90 million per person, and if we export a lot of gold Columbus 8’s costs might be $60 million per person. So my job here is to hold costs down as much as possible and push exports up as much as is practical. The estimates are that if we get transportation to $50 million per person, we’ll be in a whole different ballpark where recruiting new people is concerned.”
“Consider that fifty million each is about ten times less than the cost of transporting me here on Columbus 1,” noted Will. “Tina?”
“Publicity has been rolling along fairly well; arrival is always a good time for coverage. The trick will be holding public interest. Louisa and I have some ideas and the monthly theme schedule—have you all seen it?—features some rather unusual human interest angles.”
“So, is there any reason we need the Commission?” asked Roger, with a laugh.
“Oh, of course,” replied Andries.
“It does feel different, doesn’t it?” asked Will, with a smile. “We now have enough people to maintain parallel departments with the Commission’s offices in Houston, so we are indeed in a better position to be partners with the offices there.”
“At the cost of about six or seven full-time equivalents out of eighty-four, though,” noted Alexandra. “I have relatively little time left to do construction or even to do planning; I have to spend a lot of time maintaining coordination with several hundred people on Earth.”
“And Will, we really need more support staff in Houston,” added Lisa.
“Oh, I know, and Morgan has finally caved in,” replied Will. “The idea that we would have secretaries in Houston for each departmental director seemed impractical at first, and when it became clear we could indeed manage staff from a distance if they were competent enough, the argument was that the cost would be too high—after all, these are top of the line administrative assistants that we need—and when that seemed hard to maintain because they improved efficiency, the argument really became that it gave us too much power in the administrative structure. But I’m sorry, we’re on Mars, not them! So in the next few months Morgan’s hiring six more administrative staff, which means all of you will have one full-time person to serve as your eyes and ears and argue live with others on your behalf.”
“Thank God!” exclaimed Andries.
“It will help. Emily.”
“I’m last, aren’t I, and I’ve only been appointed commander of Cassini for twelve hours. But I suppose my job is primarily to be a bridge; to argue against extravagant demands when interacting with Curry and Bach, and argue in favor of reduced requests when talking to the rest of you. I suppose my first task is to make sure Cassini has enough people to get started well, and that means twenty staff, I think.”
“Twenty!” exclaimed Alexandra. “I thought we had agreed to sixteen! Don’t take the rest from my allocation!”
“Or from exploration; we’re scheduled to investigate two more gold districts,” added Roger.
“The contracts call for four support people for each team; that’s eight, plus their eight, a total of sixteen. But ‘support’ does not necessarily include construction. The contract can be interpreted to mean that, but I would not favor that approach because it will restrict the personnel able to support gold recovery. We’ve got forty new people; is there that much harm assigning half the increase to gold recovery? It still means a big increase in every other function. Let the new people earn their keep.”
“We all earn our keep,” replied Alexandra. “And part of that ‘keep’ is making life here less rigorous; expanding our pressurized volume, diversifying our ecosystems, increasing our capacity to recycle wastes, and raising our output of goods, especially consumer goods. If we can expand our fabrication capacity as much as projected, Columbus 8 will bring the miniature compressors and other parts we will need to make small refrigerators for our flats, and parts to assemble microwave ovens as well. Think how much easier they will make things!”
“Do you want microwaves and friges, or an extra couple hundred million bucks?” replied Emily. “You can import five tonnes of stuff to make microwaves and friges for seven or eight million dollars.”
“Are you thinking that we would send eight support people and four construction people to Cassini, then?” asked Will.
Emily nodded. “Perhaps it would be six and six; it depends on whether the support tasks will require eight. Alexandra’s ‘fifty tonne biome’ plan requires four or five person-years to achieve phase 1, which includes setting up one biome and enclosing one floor of one building, and framing out the second floor of the same building. Phase 2 involves completion of the exterior frame of the same building and filling the biome with several thousand tonnes of soil, so that agriculture can begin. Phase 3 completes building one, which expands its capacity to twenty people. The idea is to get at least the first two phases done before Columbus 7 arrives, then set up a second biome with the same two phases, then complete building one in each biome and install building two.”
“Why not finish the first biome before setting up the second? Saves money,” exclaimed Dan.
“Redundancy,” replied Alexandra. “Two biomes reduce greatly the danger of a disaster.”
“Where do twenty people stay before the biome is pressurized?” asked Dan.
“In the two building bubbles,” replied Alexandra. “We can accommodate a dozen easily in two mobilhabs and two conestogas, so we send them down and they inflate two of the building bubbles on a smooth surface that was quickly prepared. They’ll need plastic sheeting over them to protect them from ultraviolet and dust and to anchor them. We can set up tents inside the bubbles and accommodate twenty or even thirty very easily, though not very privately! Sixteen would be much more comfortable. Then they prepare the foundation—just the part under the biome, not the walls around it—and inflate the main biome enclosure. Then they can move the two building bubbles inside, live in one and build a building inside the other.”
“Clever,” replied Dan. “Sorry I’m so ignorant of these matters.”
“That’s okay, we can’t all be experts in everything,” replied Will, though he didn’t point out that this was the first time Mars had a head of staffer who knew so little.
“With sixteen people, I think we could complete phase one in four or five months,” continued Alexandra. “The four miners and two support staff for each company would live in one mobilhab for each company.”
“But we need the mobilhabs for exploration,” replied Roger. “We’ll have two more mobilhabs pretty soon, but we’ll get a lot more exploration done if they’re in the field. They’re really fantastic.”
“The personnel have to stay somewhere,” replied Alexandra, irritated.
“Cassini can spare the conestogas once the bubbles are set up,” said Will.
“There’s something else to consider,” exclaimed Lisa, above the rising voices. “Cassini’s biome potentially can contribute a sixth of our biological output. That translates into a more diverse ecology, diversified food sources, greater availability of cotton, and other advantages.”
“But more ecology workers means fewer for construction, fabrication, and science,” reminded Alexandra.
“But more safety,” added Érico.
“That’s important,” agreed Will. “How about this. Two mobilhabs, two conestogas, and two rangers head for Cassini with eight people and are met by a shuttle with eight more and forty tonnes of cargo. They set up the biome enclosure and the bubbles in about three months, then the mobilhabs or the conestogas leave and at least eight more people arrive. We won’t have the accommodation for twenty-four plus adequate redundancy until the bubbles and the enclosure are ready. Then we keep twenty-four there for six to nine months, until phases 1 and 2 are completed. That gets the building set up so that the workers are comfortable, and gets the agriculture started as quickly as is practical.”
There was a silence. “It’s a compromise,” said Érico. “Assuming, of course, you can take the extra people back when phase 2 is over. There will be pressure to complete phase 3.”
“The answer is simple: no,” replied Will.
“I get less construction people, and Roger gets only some of the mobilhabs he needs,” noted Alexandra.
Will shrugged. “We have limited resources, and the gold is very important. I don’t really want Cassini to have a biome, but it will have one; the Commission has said so after long arguments with the companies. And it’s only fair that it will have a biome; Cassini’s bringing in half our money!” He looked at Emily. “When can we get the crew to Cassini?”
“There are two more weeks of training scheduled, but it’s not as important as the training we’ve completed. I’d get them there as soon as possible, especially with the dust storm season on the way. We could leave in about eight sols.”
Will nodded. “Let’s get the Cassini crew on the way in eight sols, then. The sooner they start recovering gold, the better for everyone.”
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Emily was intrigued by the group of people standing in the greenhouse, staring out. Arieh was wearing his medical scrubs, which was unusual. John Hunter stood next to him, his black Lakota hair in a long braid down his back. Greg was wearing his priest’s collar, which was also unusual.
“I really love the labyrinths,” exclaimed Arieh, as she approached. “Madhu’s a genius at outdoor decoration.”
“You should see the sculpture garden at the base of Face Rock,” noted John. “You can walk the labyrinth there, stopping to look at the wind sculptures periodically.”
“It’s quite large,” echoed Greg. “You can spend half an hour in it at least.”
“What’s a ‘wind sculpture’?” asked Arieh.
“A rock sculpted by the wind,” replied John. “We’ve found some pretty interesting ones on our explorations around Mars, and we’ve brought them back here for Madhu to arrange in the park at the base of Face Rock. There are other natural sculptures there, too; salt weathering and other forces have produced some pretty unusual shapes.”
“It’s sort of like driftwood on Earth, but rarer,” added Greg.
“I hadn’t realized the geologists were collecting them,” exclaimed Emily, joining the conversation. “I thought Madhu and maybe Roger had done it.”
“Will encourages it,” replied John. “Everyone got into it pretty quickly; we craved the aesthetic dimension of life.”
“In some societies, labyrinths were sacred objects,” noted Arieh. “That’s a funny notion to me, as a Jew. Places are sacred because of the history that transpired at them, like Jerusalem, or Masada.”
“And for me, everything is sacred,” replied John. “Everything is alive; every rock has some sort of unknowable spirit. This world is alive with spirits.”
“The spirits of the dead planetesimals that made this place, and the dead microbes that lived here,” exclaimed Greg, looking at John. He knew of the man’s vision quest and the spirits he saw, up on the escarpment.
“But what sort of spirits do they have?’ asked Arieh. He sounded slightly skeptical, yet willing to believe.
John didn’t answer right away, and the silence began to feel thick and heavy. “They feel. They can love, and therefore they can hate,” he finally said.
“What will they think of our ripping huge holes in Cassini Borough?” asked Emily, curious.
“I suspect they will feel the same toward that as the spirits on Earth feel toward mining. Some understand and some resent.”
There was silence again as everyone wondered whether to push the conversation any farther. It was not an area where they had a common cultural ground. Emily looked at the maze of red sandstone and black basalt that Madhu had laid out over the piece of “dead ground,” a chunk of Martian terrain surrounded by buildings on all four sides. With her eyes she followed a red path, avoided a dead end, and reached the image of a mesa about a third of the way through the pattern. She had looked at the same labyrinth just the sol before for a few minutes and it seemed much harder that time. “Do they change the maze?” she suddenly said.
“Yes, every month or so,” replied Arieh. “Madhu was out here yestersol moving a few short sections to change the paths drastically. She said she wanted to update them before starting her recovery.”
Emily suddenly realized why Arieh was dressed in his surgeon’s scrubs. “Did you just operate? How did it go?”
Arieh nodded. “Pretty well. Greg was one of the nurses assisting me. We had to make two very small incisions in order to get the laparascope into her lung, but we got the growths.”
“Cancer?” Emily asked.
Arieh nodded. “Yes, I’m sure of it. I’ve seen it before. But we got all of it, and with chemo she should recover.”
“She’s lucky,” added Greg. “Staying here was a big risk.”
“It’s a very discrete, slow-growing tumor. We’ll watch her closely too.”
“Radiation?” asked Emily.
Arieh shrugged. “Who knows. It could result from radiation exposure, from silicosis; we’re exposed to extremely fine particles of eolian dust here.”
“Mars is not without hazards.”
“To babies, also,” added Greg. He looked at Emily. “Radha and Lal just learned that their baby has Down’s Syndrome.”
Emily’s eyes grew wide. “Oh Lord, that must be a terrible burden on them. How serious is it?”
“It’s too soon to say,” replied Greg. “We did a genetic test. She’s three months pregnant, and now they have to decided whether to keep the baby.”
“A mentally retarded child on Mars.” Emily contemplated the matter.
“It doesn’t matter, in my opinion,” replied John. “The child will be able to love, and certainly he or she will be able to contribute.”
“John, if the case is severe, the child will require almost constant care all its life,” said Arieh. ‘It’ll be a huge burden on Mars society.”
“Why do you define the child as a burden?” replied John. “”What are your assumptions, my friend?”
Arieh said nothing; he didn’t want to argue.
“Is radiation the cause?” asked Emily.
Arieh smiled. “We’d all like to know that. Lal’s 41 and Radha’s 34. Statistically, 34 year olds have a relatively low chance of a Downs syndrome child. We’ve had thirteen children on Mars; this is a high incidence, if it were statistically significant.”
“Which it isn’t,” added Greg.
“Another reason to pray,” said John. “No matter how good the technology gets, life will never be predictable or controllable.”
“If prayer helps,” replied Arieh. “Life here is not as easy as on Earth.”
“It beats hunting buffalo and living in skin tents when it’s twenty below.”
“But this is the twenty-first century, John,” persisted Arieh.
John looked at the Israeli. “Our children here are living better than those of some of my cousins on the rez, Arieh. In fact, we may be living better than half of humanity.”
-------------------------
In a place as small as the Outpost, both items of news spread very fast and had a deep impact. In groups of twos and threes, the human population of Mars once again reconsidered the wisdom of their residency on the Red Planet. The issue surfaced at the first town meeting that Satursol evening as well.
“This issue won’t go away for a while,” noted Madhu to Will, Roger, and Ethel on Sunsol afternoon. She sat back on a chaise-long in the yard of Yalta Biome, resting from the surgery. “It cuts pretty close to the bone, especially for anyone with children.”
“I’m always amazed by the range of reactions people have to a life challenge,” said Ethel. “Some people are natural pessimists, I guess.”
“I think a lot of folks will forget,” replied Roger, sitting next to his wife. “Or maybe I should say they’ll mostly forget. Three automated cargo vehicles aerobrake into orbit in a few hours, after all. Riviera Biome is now open for walking inspections; having three biomes here is really amazing. The Cassini crew leaves in a few sols. We’ve got other things to focus on.”
“I don’t know, Roge,” replied Will. “This is pretty big because it reminds us that life here can’t be quite normal like Earth. It’ll be a few decades before having kids here is not partially hazardous, before we know whether life expectancy is close to the same as on Earth. Those are big issues.”
“And the choices are hard to deal with,” agreed Madhu. “Everyone is hugging Radha and Lal; they have to make a difficult decision. It was a risk for me to wait six years and have lung surgery on Mars.”
“Thank God it worked, too,” added Roger. He looked at Sam playing with Marshall, Lizzie, and Corazon nearby.
“Hey Will,” said Érico, who was walking by carrying a plate of barbequed chicken and vegetables. He stopped. “I hope you’re okay with the election of Alexandra as Borough Chair.”
Will shrugged. “Sure, why not? There’s nothing saying the Commander has to be chair, and I wasn’t last columbiad anyway.”
“If I can be frank, my friend, it’s better for our democracy anyway,” continued Érico. “The Borough government is a parallel body to the Commission’s command structure. I think they shouldn’t be mixed. Someday, parts of the organization here could be transferred.”
“Oh, I agree. I could see the Department of Ecology and the Department of Education, Health, and Culture being transferred to the Borough, for example. Construction, fabrication, and repair might someday be privatized.”
“Exactly. Everyone can’t continue forever to work for the Commission. If Mars is ever going to go anywhere, it has to have its own healthy private sector and its own civil society. One hundred is big enough to make a start.”
“I agree, I agree. I didn’t take it personally.” Will didn’t want to admit that he had been a bit hurt, though. Sensing that, Érico leaned over and patted his friend on the shoulder.
“You’re a great Commander, Will, which is why I didn’t vote for you.”
Will smiled, appreciating the irony of the comments. Then Érico continued on his way.
“It is amazing to think there are just about one hundred of us up here,” added Ethel, after he left. “And two outposts, for that matter.”
“It’s like getting married,” replied Will. “The terms ‘wife’ and ‘husband’ sound strange. Similarly, it’ll be strange to refer to ourselves as a ‘colony’ for some time.”
“I really don’t like the terrestrial implications of the term,” noted Madhu. “It makes us sound like a part of an imperialist operation.”
“Maybe that’s honest,” replied Roger. “Because the gold changes everything, after all. Greed, not science, will dominate this world from now on.”
“I don’t agree,” replied Will. “Roge, I’m always amazed how you are capitalist at one moment and anti-capitalist the next! Nothing here will happen without money. But that doesn’t mean money is the only motive we should have. I’d rather see us try to control and direct that greed to positive aims.”
“So would I,” agreed Roger. “Let’s just say, however, that I believe in original sin.”
“Which gets us back to the issue of optimists versus pessimists again,” commented Ethel.
“And they both need wealth for their scenarios to work; they just view it differently,” added Will. His voice trailed off as he thought about that choice of words. “Hey, Madhu! If you don’t like ‘colony,’ how about ‘commonwealth’? Doesn’t that capture our dilemma; we need wealth, but it has to be ‘common’? The wealth must be generated in community?”
“‘Commonwealth. . .’” Madhu considered the term. “Of course, it makes us sound like the British Commonwealth, which is a loose collection of nations, and that’s not what we are.”
“The so-called Commonwealth of Independent States was even looser a collection of states,” added Roger.
“Of course, there’s also the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” noted Ethel.
“And the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” added Will. “The term is used lots of different ways, just like ‘borough.’ And we need a term we can redefine for ourselves.”
“Commonwealth ain’t bad, where redefining is concerned,” agreed Roger, slowly. “And it does capture an issue for us, that is, how to direct and use the flow of wealth coming our way.”
“And the way of the land owners, though,” added Madhu. “I’m not sure I’d want them involved.”
“They already are involved, and
have to be involved in any governing structure we set up,” said Will. “This is
a term we’ll have to try out.”
© 2004 Robert H. Stockman