1

Welcomes

Later the same afternoon—October 18, 2035—the shuttle Pavonis descended from orbit with five tourists, four visiting workers, and three permanent arrivals. Meanwhile, in orbit intense activity was occurring as some crew members brought about the rendezvous of ITVs to Embarcadero while others suited up, entered the space between the radiation shell and the pressure shell of an annex, and started to fold and strap down the latter into a cylindrical volume 5.5 meters in diameter and 2.2 meters high so that it could be deorbited inside a Mars shuttle. Even using gas pressure to compress the pressure shell, it was a very slow, difficult, and delicate process, for the triple-thick pressure shells could not be cracked or damaged in any way. Each annex, on Mars, could be separated into three separate pressure shells, thereby providing comfortable housing and work space for twelve people.

The task took two sols longer than expected—five sols rather than three—a frustrating delay because it meant Embarcadero had sixty people living under packed conditions two sols longer than desired. Every time one of the six annexes was packed and transferred to a shuttle, it headed for Aurorae. The Apollonaris was first, descending from Embarcadero with twelve crew on the 23d and returning two sols later with twenty-five tonnes of gold, argon, nitrogen, fossiliferous Mars rocks, and other samples. The Hadriaca descended with an annex on the 24^th, the Arsia on the 25^th, the Ascreus on the 26^th,the Olympus on the 27^th, and the Tharsis on the 28^th. Each flew back to orbit with cargo forty-eight hours after landing.

On the 29^th the Apollonaris was ready to return to Mars again with six more crew and ten tonnes of cargo. The other five shuttles followed one sol apart. The Arsia returned to Embarcadero to close up the station, which consisted of three axial modules and three ITVs. Six more ITVs floated nearby with six Annex remnants each, consisting of an aerobrake, micrometeoroid shell, and maneuvering system. Cargo was stuffed on ITVs and annexes for the flight back to Earth. Lifters were docked to pairs consisting of one ITV and one annex as well, ready to push them on the way. The 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th saw the landing of the Arsia, Alba, and Pavonis with the last crewmembers, most of whom had spent a week on either Phobos or Deimos, exploring, repairing equipment, and training to operate in a minigravity environment.

The safe arrival of everyone on the Martian surface, as always, was cause for celebration. The “ritual” that had evolved involved a reception, dinner, and a cultural program. Flights from Dawes and Cassini Stations were full for the three days before, because everyone wanted to be at Aurorae for the dinner and the shopping that the arrival of new goods made possible. As a result, the evening saw 200 of Mars’s 224 people gathered in one spot.

Greg Harris arrived at the pre-dinner reception early in order to look for the new beautician. He spotted a woman with perfectly quaffed hair, impeccable makeup, and—the true giveaway—beautifully smooth, hairless legs. He walked over. “Tatiana Petrovna, I presume?”

“Yes; and you are Father Greg Harris, I presume?”

“Exactly. I’m delighted you’ve arrived. Have you seen the salon?”

“Over there?” Tatiana pointed to the “Mariner Beauty Salon” sign. “I didn’t go in, but I looked in the window. Very nice.”

“Thank you, and the new equipment you’re bringing will make it much nicer. I’m glad to be turning the salon over to a proper professional beautician. I’ve done my best for six years; I didn’t have a lot of training when I arrived and I got a lot of tips by video from some experts on Earth.”

“I’ve heard you got pretty good, actually!” replied Tatiana. “Many people have complemented your work to me.”

“Oh; thank you. I arrived to be a jack of all trades for Mars. Four years ago I turned the cleaning operation over largely to robotic vacuuming and floor washing machines. Two years ago I was able to turn the laundry operation over to robotic clothes washers, driers, and pressers; they could even do repairs! And now I can turn over the beauticians’ work, though to a real person.”

“I’m flattered.” Tatiana smiled. “It’s hard to believe the work is now almost full time.”

“That’s the survey we did. Men need an hour every two months for haircuts and women need an hour a month for haircuts and other services; with our current population, that’s three weeks of work a month out of four. So you will have a reasonably free schedule for the next two years. You saw the price schedule?”

“Yes. It’s unbelievable, but I guess I’ll get used to it.”

“The rule of thumb is that everything here costs about eight times as much as on Earth. A meal here in the cafeteria costs about $75 per person, so a simple haircut runs $120. Believe me, it won’t be enough, either.”

“Oh, I believe you! I’ve been shocked by the prices in the store already. And I hear all the women want a waxing appointment?”

Greg smiled. “Just about. That’s something I didn’t study, so I never offered hair removal, and practically every woman on Mars is dissatisfied with her legs. I think you’ll find there’s plenty of demand. Oh, honey!” He interrupted their conversation to stop a woman walking by. “Honey, come meet Tatiana.”

Anna Racan turned and walked over. In spite of the thick radiation vest she wore over her body, it was immediately obvious to Tatiana that Anna was pregnant, which startled her considerably.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Anna. “Greg’s been looking forward to getting out of the beautician’s business and back into counseling.”

“And I’m glad to be taking over as the aesthetician.” Tatiana looked at Greg. “Please excuse me, Father—or, Mr. Harris—but I was under the impression that you were a Catholic priest—”

“Yes, that’s correct, I was a priest in Texas before coming to Mars. Here I’ve been a nurse and jack of all trades, and the Vatican asked me to resume my priestly role as the Catholic community grew. Since I had never give up my ordination, I was pleased to serve as priest as well. Anna arrived last columbiad and is an ex-nun. We decided to get married and the Vatican has allowed me to continue my priestly duties on an emergency basis until another priest can arrive. So here I am, about to become a father—in the physical sense—in about six weeks, and I am serving as a father to a flock as well!” He smiled and shrugged. “Life takes unexpected turns.”

“I guess so! What do the Catholics here think, may I ask? I am Orthodox by cultural background and I am really nothing in practice, but I am curious.”

Greg looked at Anna. “Most Catholics here have no problem, I’d say.”

“Half are only semiactive in the church, and they don’t care. The liberals are delighted to have a married priest, and the conservatives are relieved they still have access to a priest!” added Anna. “Greg also plays an important role in the interfaith community here. There are at least twenty-five religions here on Mars and they meet in interfaith services twice a month. The Catholics are in the position to take a leading role.”

“I’m surprised there are religions here at all,” said Tatiana, who sounded a bit disapproving.

“Will Elliott has something to do with that,” replied Greg. “It helps when the man in charge is religious and encourages others to be religious, as long as they are tolerant and mutually supportive. This place isn’t as religious as the United States, but it’s more religious than Europe. You should come to services. We have something every Sunsol at 11 a.m. in Clarke Dome. A Christian service is held the first and third Sunsols of the month—sometimes its Catholic, sometimes one type of Protestant or another—interfaith services are on the second and fourth Sunsols, and when there’s a fifth Sunsol we have something else. Catholic mass is held every Satursol evening at 7:30 p.m. and there’s a Muslim juma prayer every Frisol at noon. The Protestants have a Bible study every Wednesol evening at 7 p.m. and the Bahá'ís have a devotional program and study Frisols at 7 p.m. The Jews meet some Satursols, the Buddhists and Hindus whenever there’s a holy day.”

“That’s a lot, but I suppose they’re small.”

“Of course. The Sunsol morning services get twenty or twenty-five, and everyone is welcome.”

“I’m sure.” Tatiana was tiring of the subject. “Greg, I’ll open the shop on Tuesol morning. I gather over the weekend we’ll be doing informal things, and Monsol is devoted to safety training.”

Greg nodded. Tatiana headed to the refreshment table to grab another cup of punch. There she stopped to talk to Yevgeny and Alexandra Lescov in Russian, a language with which she was more comfortable than English. Tatiana’s husband, Dimitri Lyubinin, joined them.

“It’s good to see the two of you; I haven’t seen you at all since we landed,” he said to the Lescovs.

“We’ve been occupied,” replied Yevgeny apologetically. “You arrived yestersol, right?”

“Yes, I went to Phobos to see the structures we already have there and get a feel for the minigravity. It’s a distinct environment; you’re virtually weightless, but you do have a sense of up and down.”

“I tried to drink a glass of water on Deimos once,” said Alexandra. ‘It was an experiment. The water stayed in the open glass just fine and I raised it to my lips very, very slowly, but when it reached my lips the water splashed out all over my face anyway.”

“Yes, the gravity is really useless,” agreed Dimitri. “But it gave me some design ideas. We’ve still got one annex pressure shell in orbit and we can pull it apart to make three separate pressure shells. Buried under three meters of regolith for micrometeoroid protection, they can easily be deployed on Phobos or Deimos. I’m hoping Elliott will approve.”

“He’s in favor of more pressurized space in orbit; we’ll need it if there’s an accident during arrival or departure,” said Alexandra.

“How are you enjoying the outpost, so far?” asked Yevgeny.

“Oh, quite well! Of course, I already knew every square centimeter, in terms of viewing the blueprints and experiencing it in the virtual reality. But walking around the place, the feel is different. The texture is richer; even virtual reality doesn’t capture the canaries, the butterflies, the bees, the colors of the flowers, and the smell of the trees. And I walked around outside this afternoon for several hours and climbed up on top of Boat Rock to look down into the biomes.”

“New design ideas?” asked Yevgeny. He knew Alexandra couldn’t ask; her design ideas and Dimitri’s had clashed for several years. Having him here was going to be difficult.

Dimitri glanced at Alexandra briefly, nervously. “Yes, I think I’ve been inspired. I also have a better appreciation for Alexandra’s insights; after all, now I’m experiencing the same environment in the same way.”

Alexandra didn’t look convinced. Dimitri smiled again. “The one feeling about the place is crowding. The virtual reality doesn’t capture the sense that people are everywhere. Our population density is incredibly high. We need a lot more space.”

“And how will we do that?” asked Yevgeny.

“I’m not sure which option is best; a lot of proposals have been made.” He nodded to Alexandra. “Well, I’ll see you in the office on Tuesol. Shall we get another cream puff?” Dimitri asked Tatiana. She nodded, so Tatiana and Dimitri walked away.

“He’s pleasant,” said Yevgeny.

“Oh, he’s never been impolite. His ideas are radical, though.”

“My dear, so have your ideas.”

“But you can only implement so many radical ideas at once,” she replied.

Will walked over just then. “It’s good to see both of you. You’ve been scarce lately.”

“We’re alright,” replied Yevgeny. “We just had a conversation with Dimitri.” It seemed wise to change the subject.

“Will, I have my doubts about the value of Columbus 8,” continued Alexandra. “The last two years we’ve retired half the heads of our support staff on earth, laid off half the staff, and trained part of the rest to come here. So now we’re getting less work done than before, but we have to pay salaries five times as big.”

“Alexandra, we’ve been over this before, haven’t we? Our capacities here will increase fifty percent and the engineering and design staff we’re gaining will now be doing construction work as well, which will inform their theoretical work. The support staff on Earth is smaller, but we now have more experience and need less support.”

“Well, I hope that proves to be true.”

“Lisa has the same worry with the environmental management and agricultural support facilities, but everyone says it’ll work. We’re getting some good people.”

“The Export Department is gaining some good staff,” agreed Yevgeny. “Will, Alexandra and I have been meaning to talk to you for the last few weeks. Can we meet you at your office tomorrow morning?”

Alexandra was startled and stared at her spouse. Will tried not to notice the reaction. “Sure; 11 a.m.? I’ve got an appointment before then.”

“Okay; thanks,” replied Yevgeny.

Will walked away, leaving Yevgeny to face the ire of his wife. “Why did you do that?”

“Because it’s time to tell him.”

“But he’ll argue with us!”

“Even so, Alexandra, Will’s a friend. We need to tell him.”

Just then the door to the kitchen opened and out rolled the first buffet table. Everyone gathered around to watch table after table of food roll out: stuffed turkeys, heaps of fried chicken, rounds of beef and pork, trays of tilapia and catfish, great platters of rice, bowls of different pastas, kettles of soups and tomato sauces, mixed dishes of portobello mushrooms with noodles and cheese, or lentils and rice, or goulash, many bowls of different vegetables, potatoes of every sort, five kinds of bread. . . every table was different. Lines immediately formed.

Helmut Langlais knew what to look for and soon got in the line that would get him most of what he wanted quickly. He headed for a table close to the Elliotts where Neal and Rosa Stroger habitually sat; Neal was a good friend from their trip to the asteroid Gradivus. But before they arrived, an attractive young woman with auburn hair and bright green eyes walked up to the table. “May I join you?”

“Yes, of course!” Helmut was startled by her. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.”

“Clara Forsythe.”

“Newly arrived on Columbus 8 from—”

“Vancouver, British Columbia.”

“I’ve never been to B.C. It’s supposed to be beautiful and green.”

“It is. So, you’ve been to five worlds, but not to B.C.”

“Six worlds; but who’s counting.”

“Six?” Clara was puzzled and started counting in her mind. Helmut watched, amused.

“You must be a fan.”

“Sort of. Phobos?”

“No, never been there. I’ve put in for the next mission and am on the waiting list.” Clara obviously wasn’t coming up with it, so he added, “Earth, moon, Deimos, Mars, Gradivus, and Gradivus’s moon.”

“Oh, of course! I forgot the moon. What was it like?”

Helmut shrugged. “Superficially, all these small worlds look alike; gray with a bit of metallic tint or dark carbonaceous material, rolling surfaces, close horizons, scattered craters, and a rubbly regolith more or less covering the bedrock. The interest is mostly geological; Gradivus’s moon tells us about the fragmentation history of Gradivus, which itself is made up of three large chunks that have been either orbiting each other or stuck together at various times.” He looked at her. “You seen to know all about me, but I don’t know anything about you.”

“Well, what’s there to say? I’m a systems engineer; I was the chief day officer on the flight out. Before training for this mission I served at Shackleton Control for two years while finishing my Master’s degree.”

“Really? That must have been exhausting.”

“It was, but I was motivated. I’m here to work in Mars Control, at Dawes or Cassini, and to drive P-200 Prospectors in my spare time.”

“Settler?”

“I suppose. Life is unpredictable. Are you planning to stay?”

“I wasn’t, but I suppose I am now. ESA doesn’t seem to want me for the Mercury or Venus projects, assuming they ever fly a Mercury mission, and NASA hasn’t responded to my application for Project Argo. Here I can explore an entire planet and put in for Mars-crossing asteroid missions every year or so. I suspect Mars will be sending missions to the asteroid belt in another decade or so.”

“This place will be the center of a lot of exploration,” she agreed. She glanced him over, sitting in his seat; he was tallish, with blonde hair and blue eyes and a strong, handsome jaw. She had been dying to meet him for months. Furthermore, they were the same age, though his birthday was six months before hers. She wondered whether he’d go look at her bio on the website.

“What have you put in for?” he asked.

“Mars Control, and got it. I’ve heard Dawes and Cassini are hardship posts, so I avoided them.”

“They’re smaller places and people work harder, but they’re worth spending some time at, especially since a lot of expeditions depart from them. Do you know geology?”

“The basic stuff; I have a field expedition certificate from the moon. But there’s not a lot of systems engineering on an expedition.”

“No, but don’t you need some variation? That’s the great thing about Mars; you can do something different every six months. But come to think of it, I bet the Meridiani Project needs a systems engineer. It’s a six-month project to clear the Meridiani Trail from here to Dawes Outpost; eight meters wide, very straight and smooth so that robotic vehicles can drive it at sixty kilometers per hour, and it’ll include an extensive geological component so that we can ascertain the history and resources along the route. There will be oases—fueling stops and shelters—every seven hundred kilometers with a sunwing landing strip and a wind turbine farm; the wind turbines will be the big resource investment.”

“Sounds like you’re going.”

“Yes. I didn’t want it, but last year I had really good luck choosing my assignments, so I guess this year my luck isn’t so good.”

“It sounds pretty interesting to me.”

Just then the Strogers arrived with their two children, seven year old Richard and four year old Sarah, followed by the Vickers and their daughter, five year old Caitlin. Clara seemed surprised to be plunged suddenly into a domestic environment, but she quickly adjusted and began to play the role of auntie to the kids, which was more or less expected; anyone uninterested in helping children sat at childless tables. But looking around she could see there weren’t many childless tables.

“This is a pretty family-oriented place,” she observed.

“We don’t have any extended family here,” replied Rosa Stroger. “Children help to anchor us as a community and focus us on the future. They deepen our culture too.”

“And we don’t have singles bars,” added Charles Vickers. “We work together, live among each other, and socialize together here on the patio.”

“Do families eat any meals by themselves?”

“Sometimes,” replied Neal Stroger. “On the weekends, especially, I’ll bring breakfast home from the Patio. Lunches on the worksols, every family has their own table here on the Patio; the kids come here from school or daycare to eat with their parents.”

“Families seem to be rather small, though.”

“Eammon and Irina have five kids, but the rest of us have one or two,” replied Rosa. “People keep saying we really should have two each, but it seems unlikely we’ll ever reach that number.”

“Would you like coffee or tea?” Charles asked Clara.

“Oh; coffee,” she replied. He rose and went to the table with the desserts and drinks, returning a few minutes later with two cups of coffee and a slice of apple pie. Clara and Helmut got desserts and they all chatted about the flight out.

When Will Elliott walked to the stage, a hush fell over the crowd. The Governor of Mars always closed the dinner and opened the cultural evening with a few words of welcome.

“When I look out at the crowd before me, I feel excited,” he began. “Columbus 8 has brought Mars sixty-one new migrants, five tourists, and four special visitors. The Elysium arrives in another month with eight more migrants after a visit to 2009KL16. The crowd here has been swelled by a lot of people in their late twenties and thirties, highly trained, devoted to settling this world, young enough to have energy and enthusiasm but old enough to have experience and skills. You are immensely welcome and badly needed.”

He paused to let people applaud. “We now embark on the eighth columbiad of Martian settlement, twenty-six months of new opportunities and projects. This columbiad, more than many, will be shaped by the situation on Earth. The depression that started last year has spread and deepened and appears likely to last at least another year. Uncertainty over terrorism has settled into the culture of Earth, which has been shaken by a massive computer virus and a nuclear bomb; those who have just arrived can tell us their personal stories of what they lived through. The decision of the American administration to protect their damaged economy has triggered a trade war that has unraveled some of the fabric of world trade. Investors have pulled their money out of the American economy, threatening the dollar with collapse. Uncertainty over currencies has undermined confidence in the entire world economy. Until governments realize their precious sovereignty has been severely compromised and efforts to retain the remnants of sovereignty will simply weaken their economies and subject them to terrorism, uncertainty will remain. And uncertainty means the price of gold will remain high.

“Mars shipped 150 tonnes of gold to Earth back in the spring; it arrives there next week. Next month, 138 tonnes more will accompany Columbus 8, reaching Earth next August. Together, they will earn Mars ten billion euros; twelve billion dollars in its value of last year; twenty-five billion dollars in its current valuation. That fact will be the principal shaper of the eighth columbiad.

“It has two principal implications for us. First, the ten billion euros has to be spent. Six billion belongs to the Commission, four billion to the three mining companies. Their stock has gone through the roof, banks are extending them credit, and they want to spend more money here to expand their facilities; they might even consider asteroid mining. We have to spend our six billion as well. Over the last year we have had to cut our terrestrial support expenses sharply because of declining governmental subsidies and uncertainty over the size of our gold income. We must invest some of the six billion in the future because the price of gold, inevitably, will fall and our income will shrink drastically. So how will we spend the rest? We need ideas and input from everyone. We are already funding or considering research for better biomes, bigger shuttles, cheaper habitats for interplanetary transportation, new ion engine technology, more reliable and efficient life support systems, more flexible pressure suits, genetically modified crops for low-pressure environments, and a dozen other things that will make settlement of this world safer, more reliable, and cheaper. We need about a hundred billion euros of investment, but six billion will have to do for now.

“The other implication is that we must focus a larger portion of our human resources on gold mining and related investments than ever before. Right now, few nations will subsidize the transport of a citizen to this world; they’re broke. But if we can move closer to economic self sufficiency, we will garner more investment in land and mineral rights, which will drive expansion of the population, which in turn will generate efficiencies of scale and close the gap between expenses and income. Mars is at a turning point.

“The objectives implied by all of this are as follows: augment our gold mining staff by at least fifty percent; deploy a mobile gold mining capacity so that we can go after the scattered high quality deposits; increase gold exports to take advantage of the high demand for our product; expand our infrastructure, in particular by building the Meridiani Trail to speed up and automate surface transport to the Central Highlands; solve the energy crisis brought on by growth by greatly increasing our use of wind power and by initiating manufacture of solar cells; create a permanent exploration capacity in the polar regions; drill the north polar deposits in order to recover a record of the global climatic history and drill the Hellespontus thermal region to search for underground microorganisms; expand Embarcadero; construct a permanent facility on at least one moon; launch at least one, preferably two, missions to Mars-crossing asteroids; choose a plan to expand interplanetary passenger and cargo capacity and our capacity between the Martian surface and Mars orbit; identify other exports to the Earth and moon, such as platinum-group metals, solar cells, light manufactures, agricultural products, and volatiles; collaborate with the Venus-Mercury Commission to support their efforts; expand our total pressurized space and our capacity to build biomes more quickly and less expensively; move the Bioarchive project to the next phase; implement the next stage in the growth of Mariner Institute of Technology and Mariner Hospital; continue the development of the arts and culture on Mars; and hold another conference on quality of life issues.

“Can we do all of these tasks in two years? We can start on them, at least. Some we will complete. Mars, fifteen years after the first landing, has 226 human beings, including thirty-seven children. Its capacities are unimaginably greater than they were in 2021 when six of us erected hab 1 a hundred meters from the base of Face Rock. In another fifteen years it will be 2050 and humanity will enter the second half of the twenty-first century. What will our population be then? A thousand or so? We may see the first births of the third generation of Marsians by then. The tasks we are initiating this sol will be accomplishments in the history books of 2050, and Mars’s goals will then be far greater. Mars’s future rests in our imaginations, our creativity, and our hard work. So let us enjoy our cultural program tonight, go through our training programs in the next week, and get to work.”

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