A Colony on Mars

by Cliff Roehr

  “There is just a sump hole in the public rest rooms and al the waste water and stuff goes down that hole, we never see it again and really don't know where it goes from here. Maybe it comes to a river down there somewhere and just flows off into uncharted territory. One thing for sure is that this planet can use al the bacteria it can get from us humans.” Maybe so, thought Tim, now that we have finished polluting the Earth we can start polluting Mars. Of course, the handful of people that are here now are just surviving the best they can but someday soon someone is going to have to address waste disposal before it becomes a real problem.

  After they left Tim told Carla, “On Earth now they have equipment in third world countries that can process human waste and kil all the harmful bacteria and germs but leave a useful top soil material that can be used safely to grow crops. There are plenty of nitrates in this Martian soil that we find below the surface of the planet. These Nitrates are one of the main components that enable plants to grow. The Nitrates feed the sugar bacteria produced by the process of photosynthesis. We have plenty of nitrates on Mars and after all that is the backbone of producing a fertile top soil that wil support growing plants. It also produces the Nitrogen that makes up the bulk of our atmosphere. The action of the nitrates feeding the sugar bacteria is what enables the plant to give off Nitrogen. Lack of fertile top soil containing nitrates is one of the biggest problems in the third world. Top soil is an even bigger problem, there are parts of Africa that used to support farms that now lay barren because the top soil has al blown away. Even in the United States back in the 1920's they had what they called the dust bowl, where all the topsoil was either covered with fine dust or had blown away. Thousands were driven from their homes in Oklahoma and North Texas.”

  Tim wrote a report about what he knew on this subject and passed it off to one of the scientists that he saw walking through the compound. The scientist stopped long enough to read what Tim had handed him then told Tim that, “a machine like that is already en route to Mars and they should have it on the next ship. We have not had one in place sooner because it hasn't been our highest priority. With the addition of all you new guys we know that good top soil proper waste disposal will now be of greater importance. We have tried kil ing the bacteria in human waste on the surface but when we get it back down here in the cavern it is just as useless as all the other Mars soil. Those unfiltered UV rays on the surface kil all bacteria. Including the bacteria that our bodies are composed of.”

  Tim said when they left the supply building that he would like to spend his first night near the public rest rooms because he did not relish using the porta-potty. Carla wanted to be close to the Mess Hall also so they located a spot between two permanent houses then asked the occupants if it would be OK if they camped there that evening. “Sure, If there is anything you need or if I can be of any help just let me know.”

  “I can't get over how friendly and accommodating everyone is here, “

  Carla remarked. “Yeah it's sure a lot different from Earth, it's just like being on another planet, Ha Ha.

  Little did any of the more than three hundred people who had arrived on the Mars Supply Two that day that only fourteen of them would ever return to Earth.

  CHAPTER - The early days

  Carla had to report to the kitchen at 0430 to fix breakfast but Tim had six days off to build his house and get things set up for temporary living. “Only one blanket and we don't know how cold it gets here at night Carla said, I wonder if we are going to get cold.?” “There is a question that I can answer, said Tim and the answer is no. These caverns are maintained at a constant 73 degrees, year round, you wil never be cold and you will never need a coat. Carla took her bag of toiletries and headed for the public rest room. The place was busy but she had little trouble in finding an open shower stall. Surprise it worked just like the showers on the ship. After her shower she found an open wash basin with a large mirror where she finished her toiletries and returned to her camp. She returned about the same time as Tim. They donned their night clothes, inflated their mattress by pulling the well marked tabs and crawled in to bed to spend their first night on Mars. March 28, had been a very busy day, indeed. The lights in the Cavern went out promptly at 2200 everything quieted down and they both fell asleep almost immediately.

  September 29, 2107: Carla's phone rang at 0400, Carla located her phone and fumbled with her watch before she located the button. She notice that the button was back lit and blinking so she pushed it. Hi Carla, this is Hilda, I am just calling the members of my crew that are assigned to prepare breakfast. I didn't know whether you had an alarm clock working yet or not. You need to report to the kitchen in 30, minutes to help prepare breakfast.” “Oh, thanks Hilda, and you were right, I didn't have my alarm clock working yet. I'l see you then.” She then pushed the button that had started blinking again when Hilda hung up. And crawled out of bed. Tim just groaned. After a visit to the public wash room Carla got dressed and went over to the kitchen. Hilda was there there to set her to her tasks. By 0600 people began to pour in and breakfast came off smoothly. This morning the kitchen was serving oatmeal and toast with canned fruit. Tim received a call just as he was finishing his breakfast at 0645, asking him to report to The Company cavern at 0700 or as soon thereafter as he could make it. Carla couldn't help but notice how many people had their ear pieces in and were moving to one kind of music or another. After a while you will even learn how to tell which station they are listening to by just watching them,” one of the other kitchen workers said, “If they are really grooving then that means they are listening to pop. If they have a serene expression on their face they are listening to the elevator music, If they look sad it's C&W, and if they look as though they are listening to a conversation then they got the talk station on. I make a game of trying to guess. Most often they are listening to talk radio, that's the most popular.”

  Tim arrived at work at 0650 and struck up a conversation with Jack Overmeye. “Did you notice that it is warmer in this cavern than in the Government cavern, Tim?” “Nope, I haven't been in here enough to pay it much attention.” “I spent the night in here last night and had to throw my blanket off, when I got up to go to the bathroom I noticed that it felt chilly in the other cavern, so this morning I went around feeling all the wal s and in the far back and off to your right there is a hot spot that you can't hold your hand of for long. I then checked the floor beneath the hot spot and found that to be even hotter.”

  Just then Carter Fredrick, facilities superintendent joined them and Jack related what he had observed to him.”Show me that spot Jack.” The three men skipped to the back of the cavern and Jack said, “OK, now put your hand right there.” Sure enough Carter didn't leave it there for long. “Now check the floor right here below the hot spot,” Carter put his hand on the floor for an instant then removed quickly and began to check it for damage. “Al right after I get all the crews busy I wil consult the scientists about dril ing right here.” The three of them skipped back to where the other construction workers were gathered. Carter had work assignments based on the crew lists from the ship. “I am assigning you people to the same crews that you had on the ship for now but feel free to change crews if you see another crew doing a job that you have some expertise in. The tools and supplies that you wil need can be picked up in the supply area of the Government cavern. At that point he handed out a list of assignments for each group. “My name is Carter, I have been heading up the one crew that has been working here for over two years. I have assigned one of my people to each crew because they know how to find stuff, they are not the crew foremen but each of them has a lot of good information that he can share. Since each of the crews have been together for the last couple months I imagine that you have a pretty good idea of who you would like to see as your crew chief, so I would like for each crew to informally pick one of your own and give me the name so I can make a note of who to call on if I need to contact your crew. We wil figure out a better system la
ter on.”

  In addition to working on your crew we have a work order board in the Government cavern, it is posted in front of the supply room. You should check the board every morning or evening when you are off duty. If there is a work request posted that you believe that you have the necessary skil s for you should remove the thumb tack and remove the request. Notify your crew chief before starting work for the day that you have the work request then handle that first before catching up with your crew. In that way all requests for repairs or improvements needed by the members of the community will be handled promptly. If there are stil any requests on the board when I come over to hold muster I wil bring them in with me and assign the job to a volunteer. With that the crews al had a little meeting to pick their crew chief. Crew six actually held an election and elected the guy who had been on Mars before they arrived yesterday. Each of the crew chief's came up to Carter and gave him the name of the person selected. Then they all went right to work, assembling the tools and supplies they would need.

  The people on Crew eleven assembled and all eyes turned to Tim. One of the men said “You are the one with the engineering degree Tim, I can say that you helped me a lot during training, explaining the technical stuff behind what the instructor had told us. I nominate Tim Erkin to be our foreman, any seconds,” everybody seconded the motion so they didn't need an election, Tim was elected. Tim went over to where Carter was standing and told him “Crew eleven selected Tim Erkin.” Carter just circled the name on the list and said

  “Thanks.”

  Some crews were working topside making cement blocks, some were picking up blocks that were already cured and started building public rooms like the dining room, kitchen and public bath rooms. Some went to work laying in a water line, to the kitchen, while another crew installed the reverse osmosis system, where the water from the river entered the cavern above the falls. Some were running temporary wiring in from the diesel generator that was situated in the Government cavern. The remaining crews had equally important tasks. As the morning progressed some of the workers traded places with workers on the other crews based on previous experience, knowledge, skil s and abilities. I have a lot of experience in installing electrical wiring and would be of more benefit to the job if one of you guys has plumbing experience and wants to change jobs. Sure enough some person would say yeah I have some plumbing experience but I don't know squat about electricity, so they would switch jobs. Some of the crews had surplus men because the job was being done by just three or four people that seemed to know what they were doing so the surplus workers would find a crew that needed more help and go to work there.

  Carter watched the progress in awe. The field kitchen was planned to be adjacent to the Government kitchen but the men themselves had elected to set it up in The Company cavern and had it all set up in a couple hours. One of the crews had located the new walk in refrigerator which was packaged on five separate pallets, got hold of a forklift and started assembling it with the door opening into the kitchen. After the lunch break they quickly had it all assembled, wired in and running. Thelma entered and watched along with Carter as the crews transformed the Company cavern before their eyes. Tim saw Carter take Thelma back and show her the hot spot. It was located at the back wal , near the right side of the Company cavern as you entered from the Government cavern. The Company cavern was 1.2 miles from front to back, it was a little over half a mile wide at its widest point but tapered to only about a quarter mile wide where the tunnel entered. It was about three eights of a mile wide at the back wall. Of course none of the walls ran in a straight line. The hot spot was just over a mile from the tunnel entrance. The floor space in The Company cavern was equal to about 930 football fields at floor level.

  Thelma and Carter examined the hot spot then left the cavern, returning a few minutes with a couple of the Government scientific types. They pounded, prodded, dril ed out a few core samples from the wall and the floor. They left the cavern, only to return a short while later with some other scientists. They talked some more, made some notes. A short time later woman with a camera came in and took several pictures of the blank wal and the floor. Then they all left. About 1130 Carter returned and told Jack that he had done every one a big favor. It is fewer than one hundred feet down at that spot on the floor to where it is over one thousand degrees Fahrenheit. It would be the ideal spot to mount the geothermal generator. That spot could even be blocked off from the rest of the cavern. There is a good water supply in the creek here so it looks like we have found the spot for our generator, one of them anyhow. The workers broke for lunch 1200 but most of them were back working even before 1300. “I have never seen people this industrious but I guess this is what you get when you only take the cream of the crop.” Carter remarked to Thelma. “I'l have to admit that I had my doubts yesterday when I discovered that about half the construction workers were women but I am proud to say that they seem to be doing just fine.” The crews knocked off for the day at 16:30 to get cleaned up for dinner. A few of them still stuck around to finish what they were working on.

  That evening The Company cavern was a lot better lit and four hundred new houses had one level of blocks laid. The crews had not made the wal s higher because they had run out of blocks. The block makers had more than one thousand new blocks curing on the surface, near the elevator. A few of the workers had already had a chance to try out their Mars suits on the surface. Tim walked by the supply area and was amazed to see the amount of material that had already been unloaded from Mars Supply Two. There was an acre or more of Supplies now available. Eventually the supplies brought in by the ship would cover more than five acres. Al of the pallets and crates had been carefully dismantled a and the lumber stacked just like any other supplies. Once all the wood had been stacked the new people would each receive their fair share for their personal use.

  Tim went to the public bathroom and cleaned up. His crew had been laying cement blocks and required little advise or supervision from him. He had spent the day working as a gopher for the other crews because he knew better than most, how to find things at supply. By the end of the day he had a pretty good idea where to locate tools and materials that the various installers needed. Carter spotted Tim in the chow line, and came up to him. “Tim I see that you have had some wel drilling experience. How would you like to be on our drilling team starting tomorrow morning?” Walter and Thelma Potts were right behind Tim in line and they invited Carter to step in front. Nobody minded much when a friend joined someone in line because the line moved pretty fast anyway. “I would love to do some dril ing Carter, I have spent a lot more time dril ing than in construction and that is what my degree is in.” “Good then tomorrow morning you can pick your team, but you have to take Freddy as your first choice because he has had a little experience dril ing on Mars. Freddy is not a leader, he's a fol ower but a good worker and he knows a lot about Mars.” “How many men would you think that I need?” “I don't know I haven't had any wel drilling experience, in fact you seem to be the only construction guy that I could find with any.” “Lets start with about eight then. Ordinarily I would say that we need timbers but since wood is scarce we can settle for a ladder and a superstructure built from pipe, and a platform at the top made of lumber to hang the drill from. By the way, do we have wel drilling equipment?” “I don't know you might have to improvise something.” Tim had stumbled across some equipment earlier that day when he was looking for something else. That evening, after dinner he enlisted Archy and a couple people that he knew and they constructed a ladder the superstructure for the rig and a platform.

  CHAPTER - Tim drills a well

  September 30, 2107: That morning, Tim selected his crew and they went to work. They scavenged part of what they needed and jury rigged the rest. They did have some shaft and a dril head, they converted the u-joint and motor from an old fork lift to be mounted on the platform and turn the shaft. By the end of the day they had tested all the equipment and had dril ed a hole twelve in
ches in diameter and about three feet deep.

  October 1, 2107: (from Tim's notes}”This morning we started dril ing in earnest but it is not going very well, the drill head keeps binding up and something we are trying to dril through keeps dulling our dril head so that it has to be resharpened every few feet. We have obtained a high pressure pump and a fire hose. We keep washing the clay from the dril bit with the nozzle of the hose before it can be resharpened. I had an idea, we removed the drill bit and ran the fire hose through the shaft and gave it full power. The soft clay began to liquefy and bubble to the top. I noticed smal rocks ranging is size from the size of walnuts to the size of apples being forced up to the surface. I figured we must be drilling through an ancient lava flow. I picked up the rocks that were being forced to the surface and threw them into a wheelbarrow. We were down almost 50 feet and the thermometer indicated that the temperature was up to two hundred fifty degrees. We needed around one thousand degrees to obtain sufficient conversion steam to turn a generator the size of the one we intended to mount and make electricity. That afternoon when the crew went off duty my curiosity was getting the best of me so I went over to the lake and rinsed off the rocks I had col ected. They looked kind of pretty so I put them in a canvas bag and took them to my quarters. I didn't know at the time what I would eventually use them for but on Mars you can find a use for everything. Maybe I could mount them in concrete and use them to decorate around our front door someday.”

  The talk radio announcer who called himself Harry Martian broke in to the music stations to announce that dril ing had started for the hole that would enable the new geothermal generator. Tim had his ear piece radio on the talk station and was amused at the different spins that the listeners put on the project. A couple callers feared that what they were doing could cause a volcano to erupt in The Company cavern. Actually, thought Tim, that would be a possibility. Tim found himself thinking about that possibility the rest of the day. After work Tim looked up the scientist he had met named George Schultz, and asked him what he thought. George said, “you don't need to worry at all about your dril ing effort causing a volcano,” “How can you be so sure?” “I am not at all sure that it won't, Tim but if it does you won't have long to worry about it.”