A Colony on Mars

by Cliff Roehr

  “Over here we have our gym, I am told that you were introduced to the gym routine while you were on the ship. I just can't over emphasize the importance of your daily workout, taking the vitamins you are issued daily and getting your shot monthly for as long you remain in low gravity. The gym that we have here is the same as the gym you were working out in while you were on the ship. Our classes start every hour on the hour from 0600 through 1800. You wil have to sign in. If you miss a day of taking your vitamin supplements or doing your exercises then it wil be necessary for you to seek medical attention.”

  One member of the group asked “I was told that you had a cavern for The Company employees all sealed and pressurized, could you show us our new home?” “Sure just follow me and try to keep up, I'l go slow so as not to run away from you.”

  They came to a tunnel entrance on the right side of the Government cavern. The tunnel was approximately fifteen feet high and twenty feet wide. They followed it for about fifty yards into a three times the size of the government cavern. “I want you folks to know that everyone at this station has been working their buns off getting this place ready for you. We even leveled your floor which I didn't think we could get done but we did. The Government handles the administration of this facility and the research but Mars Colony, Inc. is the prime contractor. The Company is responsible for facilities management. If there is any plumbing or wiring or building to be done you are the ones who wil carry out the tasks. You will be responsible for facility development and maintenance. The Government takes care of the atmosphere, I am sure you have already been briefed on your responsibilities and project objectives. The Company plans to send as many new employees as possible for the next three years. I am sorry that we were unable to do more for you but we did all we could. The Company had only one crew here until your ship docked. I think Thelma has some plans drawn up for what will go where in this cavern but they are not written in stone and certainly subject to your input.”

  The lighting in the empty cavern was very dim but you could make out all of the walls. The nice thing Tim Noticed was that there was a small river or stream, that ranged from fifteen to twenty feet wide, that meandered through the cavern dividing the front two thirds of the cavern from the back third. There was even a water fall where the stream entered. It flowed into a small lake that covered about ten acres. The river ran out of the far side of the lake for about ninety feet before disappearing through the far wal .

  Carla commented, “I am sure glad the ceilings on these caverns are so high it keeps me from feeling claustrophobic. That is something I was worried about.” Walter overheard Carla's remark and responded,“ The average ceiling height in these two caverns is 254 feet. The highest point is 412 feet and the lowest 196 feet,” just for your information.”

  Tim noticed that the water coming down the fal s was liquid but along the edges of the stream there was a two Inch thick crust of ice and there was a layer of ice about one Inch thick on the surface of the lake that covered about five feet out, around the bank. “Why is there ice in the lake and river but not on the fal s and the river above the falls,” Tim asked Walter. “I asked that very question of one of the geologists, Tim and he told me that the water above the fal s is only 31 degrees but because it is in an unpressurized atmosphere it remains a liquid, once in enters this pressurized cavern it starts to solidify. If we don't do something to warm this water, at least a little we wil end up with an ice skating rink instead of a stream and a lake in a few weeks. decreasing the pressure raises the freezing point of water. That is why the water in the unpressurized river was below 32 degrees but was not frozen when it entered the cavern but began to freeze once it was exposed to this pressurized environment. “That is interesting, I thought water always froze at 32 degrees.”

  Note that we have installed a concrete plug at the river entrance and another at the river exit. You can see that water flows beneath the plug, that is so our precious atmosphere does not escape.”

  “By the way how deep is the stream but more importantly how deep is the lake?” “The stream is pretty shallow, only six foot at it's deepest point but this lake is twenty foot at it's deepest point. The engineers tell me that it would be easy to make the lake larger or smaller depending on our needs.

  “That is a beautiful little stream but the water is very cold. I'm afraid we won't be able to go swimming until we have geothermal heat installed. We hope to, one day, be able to raise catfish in the lake as a food source. The water is just a little brackish but very usable once you filter it through a reverse osmosis system. Do not however drink it or bathe in it until it is filtered. We have done so with no il effects but it is taking a chance, we don't know where it has been. “We do know that it contains unknown strains of bacteria and algae. What we have tested is harmless but new strains of bacteria keep appearing. There are Martian fish that occasionally seen swimming through. Some of the fish are edible but they are like mushrooms, some are harmless and some are lethal. One of your early projects wil be to install a fish trap below the fal s to catch any fish that enter the cavern. New varieties of fish keep showing up also, so it is best that you do not touch any of them, and certainly don't eat any of them until we know more about them. Once we can positively identify the edible ones we could begin raising them as a food source, the ones we have dissected are pretty bony and don't appear to have much meat on them. It might be better to bring fish in from Earth and try raising them but first we have to prepare the ponds for them. Probably the next ship to arrive wil carry some fresh water fish, some salt water fish and fish food. I sure hope so, our diet here is a little monotonous. Fish and Chips would sure be a welcome improvement.”

  “For the moment you new arrivals wil be issued some basic necessities and invited to put your air mattresses anywhere you can find room. We are going to offer meals at our mess hall doubling the hours for all three meals. Your kitchen staff wil work with the present staff. Until your field kitchen is set up we won't have enough cooking capacity to offer more than one hot dish per meal, so get ready to eat some cold cuts for a couple days.”

  Their hosts then lead them back through the tunnel to the Government cavern where Thelma pointed out the supply building. She instructed them to return to this building later in the day for their necessities. Each of them would be issued an air mattress and a blanket. Hopeful y tomorrow we will have the rest of your equipment available but some of it you may have to wait a week to get as it wil take that long to unload all of the freight from Mars Supply Two, which we frequently refer to as MS2. They were then given a phone book containing over six hundred names fol owed by six digit numbers. Carla noticed that all of the numbers started with 000. “What are these phone books for?”

  asked one of the newcomers. “That is the Mars phone book my friend, it contains the phone number of everyone living on the planet. On the front page you will notice a special listing of important service numbers, we even have 911 service for emergencies.” “That's all well and good one newcomer responded but we don't have phones.” “You will have as soon as your ship is unloaded which could take, as I said before, anywhere from a day to a week and another couple days to get them activated and programmed.”

  Walter interrupted,“Now I have some other very interesting things to show you.” He lead them to the other side of town where he pointed out a building bearing a sign that read MARS-TV. Yes we have our own live TV news twice a day, there is occasionally other live programing, the rest of the time they show recorded video . They operate five channels during prime time but at least one channel 24 hours a day. Al of that is complements of the five major Networks. In addition to the Government and Mars Colony, Inc. the networks have a dozen employees here in the colony.

  At the moment you are standing in Colony City, the capital city of the Mars colony. And we are standing at the corner of Front Street and Colonial Parkway. The other three streets are Main Street, Broadway and Industrial. I am now leading you down to the equipment storag
e and supply lot at the end of Industrial.”

  “Here you will find all of the tools and equipment that you will be using. On the other side of the lot is where we store all of our material's. A lot of our equipment is old and due for replacement. Thanks to Jake, our motor pool genius, most things are usually in working order. There is supposed to be a lot of new equipment arriving on the Mars Supply Two that you arrived on. Even more is expected when Mars Supply One comes in about four months from now.”

  “You folks just make yourselves at home and look around at anything that interests you. The only restricted area is the observatory, to go there you must be accompanied by an authorized employee. If you would like to visit the observatory just flag down someone wearing a blue and white ID card pinned to their jumpsuits. You are welcome to explore anywhere else in the city but it would stil be impolite to enter someone's home unless you were invited in.”

  As promised lunch was mostly cold cuts and a bowl of soup. There was a large bowl of pickled mushrooms on the chow line as wel . “Where do the mushrooms come from” Archie ask one of the cooks. “Mushrooms are the only food that we currently produce here on Mars. We have a walled off room at the back of this cavern that receives little light. We had some steer manure and straw brought up from Earth a while back and the mushrooms thrive in it. You wil eat a lot of mushrooms while you are here.

  Some of the scientists are raising a test vegetable garden under grow lights but so far without much success, It takes so much electricity to power the grow lights that it is cheaper to bring canned vegetables in from Earth. It would help more than you could imagine if we had plenty of electricity. The kitchen staff could recognize the members of our kitchen staff by their white work clothes. Our kitchen workers were collared immediately and put to work. There were about eight of ours already on the planet the rest were stil on the ship, or en route to the planet in one of the Shuttles. There are three Shuttles but Shuttle three is already moving cargo from the ship to the elevator pad which crossed through a double air lock to ground level where men with electric fork lifts were removing pallets and placing them in a preprepared area of the supply yard. As the fork lift drivers placed the pallets in the holding area they spaced them out so workers could see and get at the contents of each pallet. Tim found the foreman and was put to work unpacking crates. “Lumber here is a precious commodity so we are very careful in dismantling the wooden packing crates and the pallets. Everyone wants wood to construct furniture and construction crews have an insatiable appetite for wood for all sorts of things. We even straighten the nails and save the screws and binding strips for future projects, so take your time and stack the material that they contain so that people seeking that particular item can easily locate it. Sort the lumber and nails and screws and put them into inventory in those racks and bins over there.”

  Tim had only unpacked a few things when he noticed it was almost dinner time. He went to the mess hall where they once again had soup and sandwiches. While he was eating, an ordinary house fly lit on the half sandwich lying on his plate. Casually and without giving it a thought he shooed the fly away, then it occurred to him, This is Mars, what are flies doing on Mars. He asked Carla Later and she said “Oh, yeah, we see them all the time in the kitchen, kinda reminds you of home doesn't it?”

  After dinner he unpacked a few more crates while Carla was stil working in the kitchen. Then on his way to the kitchen, as he was rounding the building what should he behold but an ant hil and hundreds of the little critters working away, carrying bits of food from the kitchen. Carla said later, “They must have been transported up from Earth with food stuffs and had just made the best of it.”

  The group that Included Tim and Carla had returned to the supply building and drawn out a mattress, a blanket a porta-potty, two rolls of toilet paper, some shaving depilatory, some after shave and several other items. The bags with their belongings in them were also now available at supply. When they had their items selected from the shelves they took them to the desk at the rear of the room where the clerk scanned them and bagged them. “How do we pay for these things?” Carla asked “Oh, there is no charge they are all free to employees, even though you don't have your permanent ID cards I can see by the cards that you are wearing that you just arrived today. I have some good news for you. We have your cell phones in, they apparently came off the ship in the first load. What are your phone numbers, I wil get them for you? Carla quickly consulted the phone book she had been issued and gave the clerk the numbers. He disappeared into a back storage room momentarily then returned with two cel phones. “Are you familiar with these,” he asked. “No, you better show us.” “You just strap them to your wrist,”

  he showed them his. “To make a call you push the big blue button beneath the dial then speak the word 'CALL' fol owed by the name or number of the person you want. ”He pushed the button on the face on his phone, then said “CALL'

  Carla Erkin.” Carla's phone rang. The clerk then told Carla to depress the blue button and immediately release it. Carla did as he had instructed and she heard his voice coming from her phone. “Now Carla, to change volume depress the red button on the top of the watch. There are four volume presets, it starts at the lowest setting then keeps getting louder until it reaches maximum volume then starts over at the lowest setting. When you want to disconnect depress the blue button again and release it. Had I said “CALL” 000565 then Tim's phone would have rung. You can either use the persons name or number and it stil works. There is a yellow button on the side of the watch, if it is blinking that means you have a missed call. Depress that yellow button for information about the call you missed. We already have a cell relay set up at each end of The Company cavern so you can use your phones anywhere even in the tunnel.” Tim and Carla started picking up their items but the clerk interrupted again.

  “Not so fast, I have one more little gadget for you, it is your personal radio receiver. Bob produced two small plastic gadgets obviously shaped to fit inside the outer ear like a hearing aid. There were two tiny buttons on the outside. The clerk who's name was Bob removed his pen from his pocket and depressed the red button several times and they could hear pop music coming from the device. Bob then depressed the yel ow button and the music changed from pop music to Country and Western. He depressed it again and soft and melodic music could be heard. One more time and they heard a voice talking.

  “I guess that was pretty obvious,” he said. The red button turns the set on and sets the volume. You need to Increase the volume by punching the red button several more times in order to hear it while it is in your hand. Then you press the yellow button to change stations. After changing stations depress the red button again twice in rapid succession and it turns the device off then depress the red button again and it comes back on at the lowest volume level. Hold it up to your ear and if you can hear it all right put it in your ear. If you want it a little louder depress the red button once or twice more to Increase the volume to where you want it. Then insert it into your ear. There are five volume settings and there are four radio stations always broadcasting. One plays pop music, one plays C&W, one plays elevator music and the fourth is talk radio. Talk radio is the most popular. We have ten or so talk radio hosts, most of them invite listeners to cal in and give their opinion about the subject being discussed. The three music stations are automated but the talk station is live, it comes on at 0500 every day and goes off at 2400. Up until now we only had three hundred people on Mars so we didn't get all that many people calling in but now with over six hundred people there wil probably be a lot more call ins. When no one calling in then the host reads news or just blabbers on with his or her own opinions and views. If there is an emergency the host can over ride the music broadcasts and switch everyone's set to the talk station while they describe the emergency or make the announcement that management has given them that effects everyone. They even break in on the music to remind people that the dining room opens in five minutes or lights out i
s in ten minutes, stuff like that. You don't have to have your radio on at all times but it is a good idea to keep it on so you don't miss an important announcement.” Tim and Carla adjusted their volume and of course selected talk radio and inserter the devices in their ear.

  “Most people just remove the device if they are having a live conversation with someone and don't want to be disturbed by their radio for a little while but many of us have gotten so used to them that we can hold a private conversation with the radio on. Whatever works for you. The battery is good for about a year but if it goes dead just drop by and I will put a new battery in for you.”

  “Any time you folks think of anything else you want between the hours of 0800 and 2000 just drop in and pick it up. I might suggest that you take one of those first aid kits over there because you are bound to get some cuts and scratches during your first few days. The atmosphere here in these caverns is richer in Oxygen than you are used to on Earth so be sure and take one of the Oxygen pil s if you get light headed and the condition will clear up immediately. They took a first aid kit and the clerk, Bob scanned it and put it in their bag. They also noticed a plastic privacy shield that stood four feet high and was supported by four plastic posts, they could tell by the picture on the label that they were intended for use with the porta-potty, so they took one of these also. They then selected a pair of clean work clothes each.

  “When ever you folks want clean work clothes just bring back the dirty ones and deposit them in the big hamper out front, then come in here and draw clean ones,” Bob told them. “We have some big washers and dryers set up in the building behind this one.” “What happens to the waste water?” Tim asked.