6.
Colorado
Will Elliott’s stomach
wouldn’t stop growling. It was March 2 and the first sol of the Bahá'í fast, so
he wasn’t eating or drinking at all from sunrise to sunset. The first few days
were the hardest and the lack of food was a distraction. When he saw Dimitri
Lyubinin, their new biome interior designer, coming, he reminded himself to
concentrate.
“Good sol, Dimitri!” he exclaimed. “How are you?”
“Oh, fairly well,” replied Dimitri. He looked around
a bit nervously, to make sure Alexandra Lescov wasn’t around. “Thank you for
accepting my invitation, Governor. I’ve become frustrated in the last month and
want to clarify my views directly with you.”
“So I understood from your email. We’re all
professionals here and we treat each other with respect, but that doesn’t mean
everyone has to be present to discuss every detail, especially if there are
clashes of opinion. I can give you a fair amount of time. I want to understand
the problem you and Alexandra have been having.”
“It’s a difficult time for her, right now, being
pregnant and planning to give up the child, and the Construction Department is
under immense pressure. The transition to making our own kevlar and other
high-performance plastics has been slow and there are major construction
delays. I don’t blame her for that.”
“Nor I. We’ve had some serious technical problems
with the equipment.” Will pointed to Colorado Biome, which was in front of
them; they had met at the dome’s eastern entrance. “What would you do with this
space differently?”
“Alright, we can start with that issue, if you’d
like.” Dimitri led Will into Colorado, a circular space 60 meters across—their
largest enclosure to date—with a transparent plastic dome soaring to 35 meters
over their head. Unlike the other biomes, Colorado’s floor sloped downward to
the northeast, with a pond right in front of them at the low spot. A brook,
Colorado Creek, flowed into it; the creek started at another pond at the top of
the biome, flowed through a short, narrow canyon four meters deep at the upper
end of the central area of the biome, and dropped over a three meter waterfall
just before it reached the lower pond. Its path was lined with aspen saplings;
the rest of the central space was planted with wheat, except for clover,
flowers, and some vegetables along the sidewalks and patios. There were six
cylindrical buildings on the north side of the biome and six more on the south
side. They were arranged in groups of three, with each group located at a
different level in the biome and having an agricultural terrace on top at a
different level as well.
“This arrangement is superior over the earlier
biomes in several ways,” began Dimitri. “The interior space is more open and
brighter. The slope and the staggered levels of construction makes the space
more dynamic, and the brook with its little canyon and waterfall gives it a
naturalness. Two ponds is a luxury. I’d shape the outer duricrete walls to look
like cliffs in the Rocky Mountains, but that’s a minor point.
“Most of the interior is agricultural, which
decreases its attractiveness; I’d prefer spaces where most of the agriculture
is on the roof. Some of the little courtyards behind buildings are a waste of
space, decrease the openness of the central area, and complicate construction.”
Will was surprised by the comments because Dimitri
knew their limitations. Pressurized space was expensive and limited;
accommodation—housing and work space—required double pressure containment and
was even more expensive. Agriculture and accommodation required eighty square
meters per person each; walkways and patios, ten more. They had a goal of
creating twenty square meters per person of park space, but they barely managed
five. The “park” space included small courtyards that admitted natural light
into the condos, which had windows and sometimes balconies; most residents
wanted at least a small amount of private outdoor space, even if it was
expensive.
“So, have you discovered the secret of terraforming
Mars?” asked Will with a wry smile.
“Hardly,” replied Dimitri. “But I think we can make
significant changes in our procedures that will make enclosures cheaper.
Alexandra’s not opposed to them, but hasn’t tried them yet because of the
emergency conditions. I’d build some biomes exclusively for agriculture and the
bioarchive project, with no housing. That means we don’t need to pour heavy
concrete foundations to support the weight of buildings, install gravel beds
for drainage, or construct walls outside the enclosure. There’s a new design
for a biome that involves no foundation at all; the site is cleared of rocks, a
meter of soft eolian dust is put down, and a heavy plastic membrane is laid flat
on top that extends fifteen meters beyond the biome. That’s the entire
foundation. The plastic bubble doesn’t have a floor; it has a skirt that
extends fifteen meters beyond the enclosed area. One sprays the outer edge of
the skirt and the membrane with water to freeze them together and puts a load
of dirt on the outermost meter so that the interior can be inflated slightly,
and then one glues the skirt to the membrane and pushes tonnes of dirt over
them to seal them together permanently and hold in the air pressure. The
interior can be pressurized to our standard pressure, but I’d use a much lower
pressure to save time and money. One
then installs some additional waterproofing, adds a half meter of soil, and
starts farming.”
Will nodded. “I’ve read the proposal and asked
Alexandra about it. She said the glues for sealing the membrane and skirt were
not developed enough.”
Dimitri scowled. “I don’t think that’s true any
more. When I was in Moscow, there was a team at the Institute for Mars
Construction hard at work on the problem. They were also working on spray-on
insulation and waterproofing for the lower dome, where it’s in contact with the
side berms of dirt and the underlying ground. The research is quite solid. We
can make an agricultural biome for about one third the work of our standard
biome. This means the standard biome can have a slightly higher population
density and more park land, which utilizes more efficiently all the work done
to build the foundation.”
“Interesting.” Will was careful not to sound too
interested; he knew Alexandra was quite pleased with the engineering work she
had put into the foundation. But Dimitri was not to be placated.
“I’m not sure what’s the best way to put this, Will,
but I think we may be in crisis. Our current formula puts three-story
accommodation units on about half the floor of a biome, yet we need about equal
amounts of outdoor and indoor space. Right now we have the housing space for
Columbus 8, but not the agricultural space; we’ll be building agricultural
space to feed our current population and drawing down our food reserves. The
agricultural space for the rest of Columbus 8 will provide the accommodation
space for Columbus 9. But if we don’t build the agricultural space fast enough,
we’ll either have to cut rations or import food from Earth, and we’re talk
about a lot of food. We need agricultural biomes, and we can build them faster
and more cheaply than we are doing so right now.”
“You have a good point.” Will looked around at
Colorado, a space he had been intensely proud of, but for which he now had
mixed feelings. “Where can I read more?”
“The report is at the Institute for Mars
Construction’s internal website. I assume you have a password to get in.”
“Yes, I do. I’ll take a look, then I’ll either get
back to you or talk to Alexandra directly.”
-----------------------------------
Alexandra hated taking time
off from her work; there was too much to do between the finishing touches on
Colorado, the excavation of Shenandoah, and the revisions of the plans for
Dakota. But the baby had to have some priority, even if she planned to give it
up. Eve Gilmartin’s examination was quick.
“Both you and the baby are healthy,” she said to
Alexandra and Yevgeny. “Your blood pressure is a bit on the high side, but it
doesn’t appear to be serious. I suppose you are feeling much better, also.”
“Sure; I’m in the middle of the second trimester.
Other than massive hunger at odd times, I can work reasonably well,” replied
Alexandra.
“How are you feeling about the situation?”
She shrugged. “As well as I can, I suppose. Everyone
knows I’m planning to give up the baby, which is embarrassing. I’m getting too
few comments saying ‘I’m proud of you for being so selfless’ and too many
implying that I’m too selfish to raise a child. I feel like the object of
ambiguous moral judgments from people who should mind their own business.”
“It’s part and parcel of living in a small village,”
replied Yevgeny. “But Alexandra, I think you read too much into people’s
comments.”
“That’s easy to do,” agreed Eve. “We already have
three couples interested in adopting the baby; we’ve started running them
through the screening process, as this won’t be the last child born here to be
put up for adoption. We’re also planning to import equipment for in-vitro
fertilization, as that technique offers a lot of potential here. But meanwhile,
three couples will soon be ready to be interviewed. How involved in the process
do you want to be?”
Alexandra recoiled. “Oh, not at all, I think!”
Eve nodded patiently. “Think about it, alright? You
and Yevgeny, ideally, should decide who will adopt the baby; then you will feel
comfortable with the situation. If I have to do much of the work, there’s no
guarantee you’ll be pleased.”
“I know, and I understand, but I’d rather not get
involved in this entire messy process.”
“How involved could we be in the life of the child?”
asked Yevgeny, causing Alexandra to scowl.
“That depends,” replied Eve. “It would be what’s
called an ‘open adoption,’ which means everyone knows everyone else. You would
have to give up all legal rights to the child; it can have only one set of
parents, after all. But that doesn’t mean you and the adoptive parents couldn’t
come to some arrangement whereby you could give the child birthday presents or make
visits.”
“This gets so complicated,” exclaimed Alexandra,
shaking her head. “I don’t want to be an on-again, off-again parent. Either I
am, or I’m not! I really don’t want to be a mother and if I’m giving up this
child, I really don’t want to know about him or her!”
“Alexandra, I don’t want to press, but I am
concerned about your approach,” said Eve. “Children are a lot of work and a big
headache. I know; Juliette is three. But children are also a great joy and they
become the love of your life. I think you could make a wonderful mother,
Alexandra.”
She shook her head. “No, I couldn’t, I’d just make a
mess of it, just like my mother made a mess of the lives of most of her
children.”
Yevgeny reached over and put his hand on Alexandra’s
shoulder to comfort her. Tears were
welling up in her eyes. Eve looked at him, wishing to help. “Well, if there’s
anything I can do—anything at all—please let me know. This isn’t easy,
Alexandra, but I am very grateful for your effort.”
“I hope I will be, too,” she replied. She turned to
Yevgeny. “Let’s go.”
He nodded and they headed out of the examining room.
After they left the hospital, Alexandra turned to him and said in Russian, “If
I’m cutting off contact with this child, you have to do the same. I can’t have
it any other way.”
Yevgeny swallowed. “Alexandra, you aren’t your
mother and I’m not your father. He was never around; but I will be. For you.”
She stopped and looked at him, surprised. “You’d
like to keep the child, wouldn’t you?”
“He or she will be our flesh and blood.”
“Yevgeny, you are being emotional about these
things, not scientific.”
“Flesh and blood is not a merely emotional matter,
my dear, it is fundamental to our humanity. You’re the one whose emotions are
clouding your judgment.” He said it plainly, matter-of-factly. It stung her,
and for a moment she was speechless.
“I should have had the abortion,” she finally said.
They walked in silence to the Patio for lunch, where
they sat at their usual table. Martha and Charles Vickers usually joined them,
but Charles was on the south polar expedition at the time, doing geology and
collecting meteorites; Mars was an incredible place to study meteorites, and
Charles had just published a conclusive analysis of what he argued was the
first meteorite known from outside the solar system. Martha, their
psychiatrist, had daughter Caitlin with her, who was about to turn six.
Alexandra watched her friend negotiate with Caitlin over the birthday party
scheduled for Satursol. They made small talk about terrestrial politics and the
upcoming Olympics. When Alexandra walked back into the cafeteria to get a cup
of coffee, Yevgeny turned to Martha.
“You’ve got to talk to her as a friend. Eve asked us
about helping to select the adoptive parents and she said no. She’s very upset
about the pregnancy again.”
“Yevgeny, what happened? I know she had a bad
childhood with an alcoholic mother and no father.”
“That’s it.”
“I wish I could get her to come to group therapy. I
have a parenting group that meets weekly, and we spend more time talking about
how we were parented than how we parent our kids! She’d realize she’s not
alone.”
“I think she wants to think she’s alone.”
“That’s Alexandra.” Martha shook her head. “How do
you feel?”
“Well, I wish she’d consider keeping the baby. It’s
my child, too.”
“I’m sorry about the situation, Yevgeny; it must be
tough. Maybe you should come to group therapy.”
“I’d have to talk about Alexandra, and she wouldn’t
want that.”
Martha nodded. “Well, are both of you free tonight
about 9:30? Come to our flat for a visit.”
“Okay. Maybe some casual conversation would help. I know
it did last time.”
Alexandra walked back to the table with a large cup
of hot tea. “I just ran into Will. He wants me to stop by his office in an
hour. He has an appointment with Lisa right now to discuss agriculture.”
“Oh?” said Yevgeny.
“We’re very short on farm land right now, and
Colorado has been producing only six months, so it didn’t generate much of a
reserve. Another problem to solve.”
“Well, come to my flat tonight after Caitlin goes to
sleep and we’ll relax, have some hot cocoa or ice cream, and relax. Maybe that
will help your stress.”
Alexandra cast a quizzical glance at Yevgeny. “I
think that’ll be nice,” she said.
A few minutes later they all finished their meals
and headed back to work. Alexandra went to her office in the Vandevelde Building
long enough to check the construction schedule and the status of various
construction experiments; there were always new results being reported. She
noted the abstract about gluing the floor membrane to the bubble skirt, among
others. Then she headed to Will’s office.
He was just finishing up his conversations with Lisa
Kok, who was the head of environmental management, the department in charge of
life support, agriculture, and the quality of the interior air and water. As
Lisa walked out, Alexandra came in.
“We’re just reviewing the figures for the next three
years,” said Will to Alexandra, pointing to a chair across the table from him.
“I’m concerned that the construction schedule puts us at the point where we can
feed 226 people at least a year from now, while we have that number now, and
will have a few more pretty soon. If Columbus 9 flies 90 people here, which is
possible, we’ll have to import about one hundred tonnes of food to make sure we
can feed everyone comfortably. That’s a lot of money we shouldn’t have to
spend.”
“I know, I was just looking at the figures before
coming over. The construction schedule slipped last year because of the
computer virus and the nuclear attack on Houston, and it still hasn’t
recovered.”
“What would you recommend if we decided we’d have to
feed 230 in half a year, and to raise our food output to a level to feed 320 a
year later? Currently we’ve got the biome space to accommodate 300 people, so
housing and work space is in good shape.”
“Hum. That seems like a leading question. We could
hurry along the construction of new biomes by installing the foundations but
not raising the structure to support the rooftop gardens. Of course, that means
we’d have to tear out farmland later to build the housing.”
“We have an all-agricultural biome at Cassini and
another one planned for Dawes, with simplified foundations. Right now we’re
actually importing food from both outposts. Could we take that approach here,
with all-agricultural biomes?”
Alexandra considered. “Actually, there’s a new
design at the Institute for Mars Construction website that eliminates
foundations entirely; the biome is built on a layer of eolian dust covered by a
heavy plastic membrane. It involves
some new techniques using glue as well.”
“How fast
could you build a biome designed just for agriculture?”
“We have
the hole for Shenandoah just about ready for its foundation, so we could start
making the bubble for Dakota right away. It’ll be sixty meters across. Maybe we
could complete it and Oregon in fifteen months.”
“Hum. What
if we saved Shenandoah for last? Or what if we built Shenandoah for agriculture
only? That would complete two biomes for agriculture fast.”
Alexandra
frowned. “Will, you’re ripping up the schedule we agreed on months ago.”
“Because we
can’t feed everyone adequately, Alexandra. And we also must think about
bioarchive. So far we’ve committed pitifully little space to the four sample
ecologies we’ve received from the U.S.A. If we expect the money to continue to
flow, we need to devote half a biome or more to each one.”
“I know,
and we’re very far behind. Alright, I know about these plans for biomes without
foundations, but I haven’t tried them. Tell you what. We can try them out on
Shenandoah and Dakota. That will give us one biome for agriculture in three
months and a second in maybe seven months, which will free up greenhouses for
bioarchive.”
“Good.”
Will smiled. “Please make it so. I’d move Oregon north to the ‘farming belt’
we’ve planned and leave spots for housing biomes to a later time. That’ll give
us how much more food?”
“Hum.
Fifty-meter Shenandoah will have 1950 square meters and sixty-meter Dakota will
have 2800. Together at 80 square meters per person, they’ll feed. . . about 60
people.”
“That’s
about what we’ll need for Columbus 9 if we build two more biomes for housing
and include rooftop gardens. Can you give me a preliminary report about this
change in plan by tomorrow afternoon?”
Alexandra
nodded. “Sure. This is a pretty big change in plans, Will, and you’re asking
for a lot, but I have to admit that agriculture is looking worrisome,
especially if we get significant growth in two years. Anything else?”
“No. Let’s
do a tour of Colorado some time, and maybe an outside tour of the other biome
sites, once you’re ready. I want to stay abreast. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, okay.
It’s been a rough few days; stressful. But I guess pregnancy is always
stressful.”
“Yes, it
is, but worth it in the end. Just hang in there, my friend.”
Alexandra
had to smile. “Thank you, my friend.”
Will nodded
and they exchanged goodbyes. He watched her leave, relieved he hadn’t had to
say anything about Dimitri Lyubinin; if she was feeling stress, that could only
make it worse. He sat back in his chair and tried to relax; he had another five
hours and sixteen minutes of rumbling stomach to go before sunset and
suppertime.
Will did
his best to keep himself busy with office work the rest of the afternoon, but
it wasn’t easy. He was too hungry. He walked the Outpost and stopped to see how
everyone was doing. Ethel had a plan for carbonyl extraction of platinum group
metals nearly complete. Toru Takahashi, their new computer hardware expert,
showed him a room filled with 100 resurrected computers and attachés, all
reprogrammed to work together as a gigantic supercomputer. The computer virus
that had struck last year had forced them to repair as many reject computers as
possible and they had shipped from Earth a whole new batch in a few months
back, resulting in a lot of surplus computer power. But Mars now had the
surplus assembled into a supercomputer that could analyze seismic and
meteorological data, generating better maps of the planetary interior and the
weather in its atmosphere than ever before, and reducing strain on the
communications facilities between Mars and Earth, which otherwise had to
transmit vast amounts of data to supercomputers on the home world. It was an
important development, and a completely unexpected one, since it had never been
written into the plans for Columbus 8.
At 5:30
Will went to get the kids and he watched them play while his stomach growled
even more. Finally at 7 p.m., with the sun nearing the horizon, he went through
the cafeteria line and loaded up on a big supper, grabbing a lot of desserts
for others as well. Then he headed home, because they were expecting a small
crowd to break the first fast together.
Soon the
others began to arrive: Ananda Thanarat, a Thai who was third generation
Bahá'í; his wife Kim Irion, an American, who had just become a Bahá'í after
three years of marriage; Enrique Delrio, Mexican, who became a Bahá'í on Mars
about four years earlier; Ethel, Will’s wife, who have become a Bahá'í on Mars
nine years earlier; and the Elliott children, Marshall and Lizzie. They were
about to start their prayers before breaking the fast when someone knocked on
the door.
“Tomas,
what a pleasant surprise,” said Will, opening the door.
“Enrique
told me of the prayer meeting; can I attend?”
“Of course,
come in. We’re about to start,” replied Will. He ushered in the young man, a
horticulturalist from Croatia who was Anna Racan’s first cousin. Enrique made
room on the couch. And then they began to pray.
Everyone
had several prayers memorized, and small books full of Bahá'í prayers were
available as well. They made a simple round and everyone offered something.
Then they turned to their food, for the sun had set and they could now eat.
“I’m sorry;
I didn’t realize it was the Bahá'í fast,” said Tomas, embarrassed that he had
already eaten supper.
“Oh, don’t
worry about it; we have apple cake and lemon pie, what would you like?” asked
Ethel.
“The lemon
cake,” replied Tomas.
“You can
have more later, if you’d like; we ordered the desserts from the cafeteria specially,”
added Ethel slicing the lemon cake. “So, how did everyone do this sol?”
“This fast
has started off really hard for me,” replied Will. “I don’t know why. Usually
the first sol or two, my stomach growls a lot, and then it adjusts. This sol I
had no energy at all for the last two hours of the day.”
“You’re
getting old,” replied Ethel in jest, for her husband was just months short of
his 50th birthday. “This one wasn’t so bad for me.”
“How many
times have you fasted?” asked Kim Irion, who was a relatively new Bahá'í.
“This is my
eighth fast,” replied Ethel. “I skipped the fast in ’26 and ’28 because I was
nursing babies and ’27 because I was pregnant.”
“This is
my. . . 33rd fast,” said Will. “No, I take that back, my 32nd.
My first fast was when I was fifteen years old, but when I was sixteen I
decided I really didn’t want to be a Bahá'í and didn’t fast, much to my
mother’s consternation. Then I skipped the fast in 2012 because of astronaut
training and 2015 because I was on the moon.”
“What sort
of exemptions are those?” asked Enrique, amused.
“Perhaps
‘performing heavy labor.’ I probably should have fasted both times, but it was
too complicated, both in terms of my intense schedule and socially.”
“When would
you fast on the moon, anyway?” asked Tomas. “Sunrise to sunset doesn’t make any
sense!”
“You fast
by the clock, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.,” replied Will. “Bahá'ís can use clocks north or
south of the 45th parallel where the days are either very long or
very short. Here on Mars, sunrise to sunset is just 12 hours and 19 minutes, so
we fast from sunup to sundown.”
“What’s the
purpose of the fast, anyway?” asked Tomas, curious.
“It’s a
reminder to be detached from this world,” replied Ethel. “We take our physical,
material environment around us for granted. It helps us remember that the real
purposes of life are spiritual: perfecting our characters, chipping away at our
bad qualities, freeing ourselves from material concerns.”
“I think of
it as a kind of spiritual spring cleaning, too,” added Ananda. “Every year I
focus on prayer again and purge my system of other attachments. I’m from
Buddhist background, and for Buddhists desires and cravings are the cause of
human suffering. The solution is detachment and freedom from the cares of this
world. Fasting helps me achieve that goal.”
“I had
always thought Bahá'ís were focused heavily on social and ethical issues, such
as equality of the sexes and eliminating prejudice,” exclaimed Tomas. “But no
one told me about the spiritual dimension of your faith.”
Ethel
laughed. “What’s a religion without prayer and devotion to God? Our goal is a
balance of the spiritual and the physical or mundane. Social and ethical
progress is hampered without spiritual values to keep it on course.”
“Look at
the Earth right now,” added Kim. “It’s a mess of political shortsightedness,
patriotic selfishness, national egotism, mutual suspicion, and haughty
aloofness. But the Bahá'í community is found in every country on Earth, as well
as on the moon and Mars, and we’re united across national and ethnic lines.
It’s because we believe in the oneness of humanity and take it seriously as an
ethical as well as spiritual principle.”
“Like your
marriage,” added Enrique, referring to Kim, an American, and Ananda, a Thai.
“But there
aren’t very many of you,” noted Tomas.
“Right now,
the social crises on Earth is causing a growth spurt,” replied Will. “It
happens every few decades. In the twentieth century, membership grew from
100,000 to six million, and the 21st is seeing the pattern continue. Here on
Mars there are just five of us, but three are converts here, so we aren’t doing
too badly.”
“Especially
since we can’t be at all aggressive in talking to others about the Faith,”
added Enrique. “Everyone here knows everyone else, so we have to be low key.”
“But that’s
fine, I think,” replied Tomas. “People here aren’t very religious, but they
have a curiosity, and they aren’t opposed to religion like in parts of Europe.
It has a place in our society, just like anything else.”
“Exactly,”
said Will. “That’s how we’ve tried to make this place: welcoming of religion,
but not embracing a particular form.”
“And strong
on interfaith efforts,” added Ethel. “That’s gone very well here, I think.”
“Yes, from
what I’ve seen after being here four months,” agreed Tomas. “Yet I think you
should emphasize the Bahá'í Faith more. It seems perfect for Mars: it accepts
all religions as divine in origin, welcomes people of all backgrounds,
establishes basic ethical principles for running a society, and calls on
everyone to create unity together.”
“We agree
with you that these are the principles Mars needs,” said Will. “It has been our
goal to encourage them ever since we arrived here, but not in a pushy or
obvious way.”
“Let’s turn to our study topic for the evening,” said Ananda. “We have
this marvelous new Wilmette Institute course on building unity, and not a lot
of time together to study it. We even have a faculty mentor on Earth ready to
answer our questions.”
© 2005 Robert H. Stockman