4

Elections

The Patio filled with an unusually animated crowd, that Satursol afternoon in early June 2038. With Mars-wide elections coming up the next sol, everyone was prepared to debate the major issues effecting their world’s future.

“Remember our customs,” Érico Lopes said, as he called the meeting to order. “Everyone can speak their mind at this gathering, and everyone should feel free to speak frankly; but among other things, a frank atmosphere means we should avoid either insulting each other or feeling insulted. Frankness does not mean we can be uncivil; rather, true frankness requires a professional, mature attitude toward our speech and a respect for both people and ideas. By custom, no one campaigns for election here on Mars, but people who have things to say are often people worthy of consideration for election. Everyone knows that campaigning is sometimes disguised as the advocacy of a vision for the future of this world. I think that is fine because it means we are debating ideas, not people. I should add that I do not want anyone to think that any vision I share is a campaign; I’ve served my time on the Borough Council and I really don’t want to be reelected! That’s why I’ve been asked to chair our borough meeting about the future of Mars.”

Many people laughed. “Elections are just a week away,” continued Érico. “You will have to vote for a Borough Chair, a Borough Clerk, a Borough Treasurer, and two at-large members of the Borough Council. You will also vote for six representatives from Aurorae to the Mars Council; that number is one more than last annum, when we had five representatives. The increase was authorized by the Council when it agreed to admit the new boroughs of Meridiani and Thymiamata to the Council with one representative each, raising the Council’s membership to twelve.

“That ends the preliminaries; let’s turn to the discussion. I give the floor to Father Greg.”

Greg Harris rose. He had been careful to wear his priest’s collar that afternoon; people treated his words with greater seriousness, and he knew it. “I anticipate that this afternoon we will have quite a debate about the future of Mars, because we stand at an unusually fertile and unusually controversial crossroads. One big issue is nuclear power and the fact that the Borough and Mars Councils both must vote, some time after the election, to either approve or disapprove the Hanford Flats site for the U.S. nuclear reservation. Another is the caravel and what it represents for our future, both in terms of more rapid expansion and in terms of our movement into the asteroid belt and beyond. The third issue—maybe the biggest—is immigration of large numbers of non-Commission personnel over the next few years, competing with us and with our culture to dominate the future of Mars. We have faced this third challenge several times in the past when nations were added to the Commission and when mining companies began to set up operations here, so in a way immigration, though it appears to be the largest issue, is really a repeat, and seems to have been resolved satisfactorily before.

“My own views on all three of these issues are simple. Mars needs nuclear power whether it wants it or not, and I am confident that we can work out an arrangement with the United States that will be ethical, legal, safe, and respectful of our rights. We need the caravel and it will prove worth the investment; the challenges it will open to us will be positive and beneficial. And we need more people here, regardless of their beliefs and practices, as long as they are willing to abide by the rules laid down in the Fundamental Law. Call my view optimistic; that people can get along and can be taken at their word.

“Beyond that, we all work too hard, and we complain about that every annum when we meet. Conferences on living well don’t seem to help for more than a sol or two. But in spite of our long work hours, relatively low salaries, and lack of consumer goods, I think we do live reasonably well. We have lower rates of alcoholism, crime, and mental illness than most societies. We have a divorce rate that is not excessive. We have made a fairly caring, friendly society, and certainly one where we feel safe at night. We miss our friends and family on Earth, but we are also proud of what we have done here and have a confidence that our society and culture are advancing in positive directions. Let’s remember those accomplishments this sol when we debate the details of where we will go as a community.”

Greg sat down to applause. Érico had hoped Greg would set the tone of the gathering, and he had; everyone looked more relaxed.

So it was time to start the debate. Érico pointed to Johnny Lind. “Johnny.”

Lind rose. He had been on Mars four years and was relatively young—33—and newly married, but he had a reputation for asking tough questions, and usually in a provocative manner.

“I don’t want anyone to misconstrue my comments to suggest disrespect for the Commission or for any personnel in the Commission. My concern is for our collective future here. Like everyone else, I am excited about plans for expansion. Humans have been on Mars less than two decades, and we already have a population of over 350. But I think we have to expand at a wise, sustainable pace, and not at breakneck speed. All my comments this sol are directed at that concern.

“First, nuclear power: it is not even clear that the United States will go to the asteroids and Jupiter; Project Odyssey appears poised on the edge of cancellation. We don’t need nukes any time in the next decade. Why not wait? Why the hurry? The arguments just don’t make sense. I call on the Borough Council to put the Hanford Flats application on hold.

“The caravel: It’s a great design and holds a lot of promise for the future, but why now? We could use our construction capacity to build more agricultural and residential biomes, more space for bioarchive, and to make more consumer goods. Why do these tasks always get postponed? Because the Commission does one thing well, and that’s develop Mars, which is measured in quantities of people and other statistics. If we slowed down a bit, we’d have a better quality of life. Let’s relax more and postpone the caravel.

“Immigration: This is the biggest boondoggle of the three, and appears to have the potential to encourage greed. Why should we encourage every weird group with strange utopian dreams and a half billion bucks to come here? Can all the new people be employed? What will they demand of us after they get here? Will they vote their own into office? Will they have their own outposts scattered around Dusty Red? And are we being realistic about the costs of flying them here and setting them up? Rumor has it groups are trying to negotiate below ten million bucks per person to fly here and ten million more for setup. What about ongoing costs? Rumor has it they’re trying to avoid paying future fees as well. Could we be so greedy for people that we’ll bankrupt ourselves and produce unemployment here at the same time? Rather than going slow, we’re proposing to hurry a caravel back to Earth to get more people here quicker! I’d at least postpone the caravel, so that we have four years to prepare for the flood of additional arrivals.

“In short, I think caution is in order on all three issues. Let’s take our time and do it right, rather than hurrying and making a mess.”

Johnny sat down to a scattering of applause. Almost everyone there—250 adults—raised their hands. Érico nodded to a middle aged man from Japan, one of the new arrivals. “I am concerned also about the plans, but perhaps not as concerned as Johnny. Space will never be opened without nuclear power, we can become the major supplier of the fuel for expansion into the solar system, and the plans are phasing in gradually. I think nuclear power meets the criteria of caution Johnny proposed. I worry about radioactivity just like everyone else here, but we are an educated group. A shuttle explosion might scatter radioactive fragments across a hundred square kilometers of desert, but it will be easier to clean up here than on Earth, and less urgent; there will be no powerful atmosphere and rainfall to spread the material around, no people exposed to the atmosphere to be contaminated.

“The caravel project, similarly, is marvelous and carefully planned. The acceleration in the last few weeks is a surprise, but can be done, and will actually give us more time for construction of biomes and housing. I am not too concerned about consumer goods; I can live without the latest gadgets. My apartment is not that much smaller than my brother’s in Tokyo.

“As for immigration, I agree we have to plan cautiously, and the rumors worry me. I want to hear more about the problems and how they are being dealt with.”

Érico nodded. He looked around. “Will, what can you say about immigration? I think this a question everyone will be asking this sol.”

Will nodded and rose from his seat near the back. He waited for the microphone to be passed to him. “We are in negotiation right now with a dozen different groups, some of which know of each other and are coordinating their positions, some of which are negotiating independently. We are also negotiating new long-term deals with twenty nations, because the lower price of settlement has attracted new interest in sponsoring citizens on Mars. Some of these have been stimulated by publicity in that nation; for example, Japan is considering sending more astronauts here because of the Zen monastery proposal. If more Japanese come, the Chinese may want to send more, which means India may want to sponsor more, which may mean Pakistan may want to sponsor more. A single proposal can generate a lot of interest. Altogether, there are proposals to fly about 600 people here over the next three or four columbiads. Adding in our own plans, we’re talking about a growth rate of sixty percent every columbiad. It sounds high, but it was a growth rate of that sort that got us where we are this sol.

“As for the rumors, they are exaggerated, as rumors usually are. The costs of Columbus 9 averaged fifteen million old dollars per person for the flight plus five million per person for set-up cargo, plus one or two million per person for locally manufactured items. Different groups have different ideas for what they will fly out as cargo versus what they will buy from us, so negotiating positions are not uniform. We are indeed estimating ten million old dollars in flight costs per person for Columbus 10, based on flying 120 people here; maybe a caravel will make it cheaper, but maybe not. Most groups do not want to give us a fifteen million dollar deposit to cover future expenses such as health and environmental costs; they would prefer to put the money into a trust they manage and that we will audit. Others don’t want to deal with costs and prefer to pay us.

“I can’t get into more details about the negotiations because they’re ongoing. As for what the arrivals will be doing, that won’t be settled for some time. Some groups are interested in agriculture, some in light manufacturing, some in specialized manufacturing. Many want to open businesses. We are encouraging some to consider consumer goods or basic materials. Others must plan for extensive, expensive, specialized training and purchase of equipment, even in the agricultural sector. Their decisions will effect our planning, too. Two years is not adequate to plan the immigration of large groups, but large groups are not planning to arrive in two years; just their advance teams. We should be able to accommodate them in that time.”

Will sat. The audience was abuzz with conversation. But hands flew up anyway.

“Eammon,” said Érico.

Eammon O’Hare rose and took the microphone. “I do hope the process is as smooth as the Commissioner implies, because I’m concerned about job displacement, longer work hours, stagnant or falling wages, and greed engendered by competition. I already worry about the dozen college graduates we have here who have tiny wages, cramped flats, and long hours in the kitchen or the daycare area every sol, all for the privilege of going to MarTech half time for their Master’s degrees, where they sometimes get substandard classes. If we replace them with some zealous religious converts working for half as much and perhaps not for any education, what future will these people have here? What will the income and education disparity do to our culture and society? And what will an increased level of zealousness do to the collegiality and courtesy that characterize our community? These are not trivial things to endanger or throw away.”

Eammon sat to a scattering of applause. Érico pointed. “En-lai.”

Their first Chinese resident rose and took the microphone. “I will not speak in defense of our utopia because we have never had one. Diversity is not a matter that will ever be solved here. It is not solved now and if we don’t get a bunch of zealous immigrants, it still won’t be settled. I won’t list all the discourtesies I’ve suffered in my eleven years here, and I apologize to those I have in turn been discourteous to. But I think we can handle a much broader range of immigrants. We will have an entire six-month voyage to orient and train them; they will arrive with a sense of what Mars is like. That’s better than can be said of the millions of poor, uneducated immigrants that flooded the United States, Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and many other countries in the past. Yet those people largely assimilated and became important contributors to their societies. Let the Zen monks, the Green Earth Community, the Universal Church of Jesus Christ the Creator, and anyone else come here. We will benefit.”

There was a scattering of applause to En-Lai’s comments. Will looked around carefully; it seemed to him that only a fraction of the audience was applauding, but the numbers applauding for and against the changes were roughly equal. Perhaps a few more people were opposed.

But the next three speakers all spoke against increased immigration in 2040, and after one positive comment, two more spoke against. The arguments were becoming repetitious and people were losing a bit of interest at that point, so Johnny raised is hand urgently. “Mr. Chair, a point of order.”

Érico was hesitant to recognize the troublemaker, but after a moment he did. Johnny grabbed the microphone as it reached him and leaped up. “Mr. Chair, I recommend we vote on this matter. I move that we ask the Commission to reconsider its plans and postpone immigration as much as possible, and look at ways to stop some groups from coming here at all if their behavior appears beyond the bonds of civility.”

“That’s not a point of order,” replied Érico.

“I second!” exclaimed someone anyway.

“Oh, hell, let’s vote,” growled Roger Anderson.

Érico looked around. There seemed to be a desire to vote. “Okay, let’s restate the motion. Johnny, is there a way to clarify it? ‘Beyond the bonds of civility’ is vague and may be illegal. Lawyers have said that the Commission Treaty indicates that if someone owns a piece of land and can afford to come here, any reasons to exclude the person must have valid legal grounds, such as criminal activity or psychological impairments.”

Johnny stood. “Fine, I’ll restate it this way: we move that the Commission reconsider existing plans and postpone immigration of paying groups at least until Columbus 11.”

The seconder, a friend of Johnny, nodded. “Okay, we have a motion. Any further discussion? . . . . No, all those in favor raise their hands. . . . Opposed?”

About three times as many people raised their hands against the motion as for it. Johnny was visibly surprised. “The motion is defeated,” exclaimed Érico.

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The borough meeting ended so late that supper was postponed and was eaten after sunset. In the north polar layered terrain, where everyone at the Polar Station had watched the meeting by video link, there was no sunset, just perpetual sunlight reflecting off fields of dry ice and water snow rolling to the horizon. They sat down to their supper around a big table in Mobilhab 1 once the meeting wrapped up.

“That was a good question, Helmut,” exclaimed Nigel between bites of chicken and potatoes. “They were discussing the Hanford Flats proposal without all the facts.”

“And I knew Brian Stark could talk about matters such as size of the reservation and of the security perimeter,” added Helmut. “I heard him discussing some of the information in the Patio.”

“I’m glad the public at Aurorae had the good sense to vote against restrictions on immigration and nuclear power,” said Nigel.

“It’s too bad we couldn’t vote from down here,” said Clara, discretely deciding not to contradict her boss. “All of us are legal residents of Aurorae, after all.”

“Yes, I’m surprised with all our technology, we can’t participate fully,” agreed Nigel. “Except I’m not sure I want to get involved in Aurorae politics anyway.”

“It can get turbulent at times,” agreed John Hunter, looking at Vanessa and Maaka next to him. The 2 ½ year old boy had been pretty good on the expedition, much to his relief. Vanessa had come around only at the last minute because the biological research was potentially very tantalizing.

“I was glad that En-lai spoke up about discrimination,” said Jen Tan. “It looked to me that people were surprised and listened to him. “He’s quite right; there are slight comments and discriminations all the time, and major infractions occur as well.”

Nigel Stanfield scowled. “I really find that hard to believe, Jen. This is a group of professionals, not a bunch of factory workers.”

“And you think professionals are free of prejudice?” Jen laughed.

Nigel flushed. “Look, this is primarily an American and European operation; they’re paying most of the bills—”

“Because they won’t let China expand its involvement and won’t let us build our own outpost.”

“You don’t have the resources!”

That startled Tan and his three Chinese colleagues. “What an idiotic statement, our economy is the second largest in the world!” Tan shot back.

Nigel turned red. “I think you should be careful about using insulting terms!”

“I’m afraid you just made my point about insensitivity.”

“But let’s not make it worse,” exclaimed John Hunter, raising his hands. “As a Lakota, I can testify, Nigel, that we are not as fair here as we should be. Vanessa’s Maori and can give you examples as well.”

“That’s alright, I don’t need to hear the examples,” replied Nigel. Clearly, he wanted to drop the subject. They all ate the rest of the supper in awkward silence. Finally, Maaka began to cry from fatigue.

“We’ve got to get him to bed,” said Vanessa, rising. Clara stood up as well. “I’ll help.” The two women walked into the neighboring mobilhab.

“I can’t believe Nigel,” exclaimed Clara, angry.

“He’s amazingly old-fashioned,” replied Vanessa. “I’ve met the type before. Jen’s not much better; their professional rivalry is out of hand.”

“I think I should talk to the Commissioner about this,” said Clara. “This is the sort of incident he’s trying to avoid.”

“With the diversity on its way here, that’ll be hard to do,” replied Vanessa. “I’d be careful, Clara. They’ll send down a team of psychiatrists to intervene.”

“I’ve only been here a week, but this isn’t the first time I’ve heard Nigel say insensitive things. It’s not good for morale.”

“No, it isn’t, and yes, he is insensitive. It has been a problem.”

“Then let’s try to fix it,” replied Clara. “But I think I will wait a bit and plan my email very carefully.”

“I’ll help,” promised Vanessa.

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

Clara thought several sols about the problem before writing Will Elliott. Meanwhile, Will was preparing for a vacation with Roger Anderson and their two sons, Marshall and Sam. It was early Tuesol morning when the four of them, in a mobilhab, headed westward with the geology class in two rangers and another mobilhab for Ganges Chasma.

“Now, how many times should I repeat the rules,” exclaimed Will to the two boys, who were staring out the front-facing windows of the top floor of the mobilhab. “Hey, are you guys listening?”

“Yes, dad,” replied Marshall.

“Then stop looking for a minute and face Roger and me.” He paused until the boys turned around. “Okay. This is not a private vacation. We are tagging along with the field geology class. We don’t get in their way or interfere in any way. While we’re in the field with them, you boys can’t be running around; you stand and listen, and if you don’t understand, you stand patiently anyway.”

“Don’t worry, dad, we’ll follow the geology.”

“We’ll see,” replied Will, skeptically. “Roger and I will help you; you guys know a lot of geology for your age, so you’ll understand a lot and you’ll learn a lot. Take notes on your attachés; we’ll give you some reviews every night, if you want. You owe your teacher a geology paper after this trip.”

“We know,” said Marshall, bored.

“And Will and I are helping Lal with the class, so we can’t watch you every minute,” added Roger. “Keep an eye on each other and don’t go anywhere without us knowing. This isn’t a little half-hour walk from the Outpost. We’ll be as much as a thousand kilometers from Aurorae and as much as two hundred kilometers from Ganges Oasis. We won’t have access to quick medical assistance. You guys could witness a serious emergency, and we have to count on you not to panic.”

The boys suddenly looked very serious and said nothing.

“And don’t forget we won’t be doing geology most afternoons because we’re the cooking crew,” added Will.

“I don’t understand why they can’t cook for themselves,” said Sam. “Half the students on this expedition work in the kitchen!”

“Which is why they’re not cooking on this trip!” replied Roger. “Besides, Will’s one of the best cooks on Mars.”

“And we have to help,” said Marshall.

“Except when we’re at Ganges Oasis,” added Will. “They have a cook there. But remember, behave well, or this will be your last trip for a few years. There’s another field trip to Aram Chaos in September, and we can go on that trip as well if you boys are good.”

They heard the clump clump of shoes on the stairs and Rahula Peres came up. “Hi; can the boys come down? We’re about to watch a video on the formation of the Marineris system and we thought you’d like to join us.”

Marshall looked at Sam eagerly. “Sure!” he said, delighted the older students were paying attention to him. Sammie followed more reluctantly. The two fathers watched them hurry down the spiral stair.

“This could be good for them,” said Roger.

Will nodded. “They’ll get a lot of attention from an age group they want to imitate, and it should be pretty good quality interaction. The students might even learn more; they may avoid confusing each other with too much terminology!”

“And now we get to find out how well it works to take kids into the field,” added Roger. “I gather the North Pole Station hasn’t had any trouble with Maaka on board.”

“Three datapoints won’t tell us much; every child is different. I’m glad we’re getting away, though, even if this isn’t much of a vacation.”

“You can’t take all your vacation anyway.”

“No, I can’t.” Will sighed. “This is an interesting time to be away.”

“I’m surprised you went, with the Mars Council convening to finalize the nuclear reservation.”

“They don’t need to hear from me. They’ll approve it; the annumal election meeting and the elections themselves all came out in favor, and the Council members by and large are in favor.”

“Yeah, the election has proved to be a good thing this year. The Mars population is on board with these changes.”

“Well, mostly, but I guess that’s all we can expect anyway. I’ll be back in time for the launch of the caravel to Earth via Venus, and there’s plenty of time to prepare for the review of the Ceres flight plans two weeks from now. The flight to 2011BA14 follows a month later. It’ll all work out.”

“Assuming Ceres stays in NASA’s plans.”

“Yeah, and it’s tricky; we can’t postpone the launch much past the midterm election, and we really won’t know what NASA will do in time. It’s a real problem.”

“With all the new equipment and artificial intelligence, I sometimes wonder whether humans will really be necessary, though they can do about one hundred times as much.”

Will was surprised. “You too, Roger? No, I agree with you. Machines get better and better all the time. Fortunately, the cost of flying humans keeps dropping as well.” Will’s attaché suddenly beeped with an incoming videomail. He glanced at the screen; it was from Clara Langlais. Curious, he pushed play and was surprised to listen to her message of concern about Nigel Stanfield’s behavior. Roger came over to listen as well.

“Brave of her, to send you that message.”

“Yes, and it seems well done; it’s not just a blind attack on Nigel.”

“Though he will interpret it that way.”

“He probably will, unfortunately. But that may just prove Clara’s point, right?”

Roger nodded. “He is too plain spoken, sometimes. I wish Lal had gone and run the expedition instead.”

“Yes, but he couldn’t.” Will sighed. He decided not to tell Roger about complaints he had received from Beijing about Stanfield’s treatment of their people, and Stanfield’s unresponsiveness when he had asked about the charges. “I guess I’ll copy this to Martha Vickers and Enlai Tang and ask them to fly down and investigate. They’d be a good team, don’t you think?”

“Yes, and discrete, but I suspect this will leak to the media anyway, and will have to be dealt with.”

“Unfortunately. It’s bad timing, coming on the heals of all the discussion about immigration. We’ll look like a bunch of bigots. I guess we can run counter statements and testimonies, though. I had better get Louisa Turner started.”

“Better you than me, my friend,” sighed Roger.

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