by Cliff Roehr
After dinner Tim went over to MARS-TV and told Rusty about the find and the cave. Rusty had already heard about the find but hadn't had time to go inspect the site for himself before he had to go on the air with the local news. He invited Tim to stick around and be his guest on the show. Tim was a little uneasy being on camera but he stayed and described what they had found to the entire community. “For the first time the news from here is going to dominate the news on Earth for quite a while.” he told Tim after the show. “I am now going to grab a photographer and get some pictures myself and then get this on the internet. We are going to be famous, Tim.” Rusty sounded so excited that Tim had to smile.
For the two days fol owing the discovery al of the networks on Earth did carry Tim's description of the find. After that they started carrying the opinions of Scientists and Mars management people. After about a week an important political assassination occurred in Germany and the media moved on to greener pastures.
In the months that followed they would seal and pressurize the remaining caverns en route to Utopia . They had already chosen the name of Cavern City as the name of the Capital City to be built in Utopia.
February 16, 2108: The crew started tunneling the next tunnel and it was to be a whopper, 940 feet with an offset to the right. The work was miserable because they were stil working in their Mars suits. No one liked working in those Mars suits. The temperature in the unpressurized cavern was just above freezing but the suits were heated and wel insulated. It was just that they were so clumsy to move around in.
A week went by and the tunnel was in about one hundred feet when one of the workers summoned the crew chief. “Joe here is acting funny, you better get him back to the clinic and have the doc check him over. Two men lead and then carried Joe back through the airlock then got him out of his suit. By this time he was unconscious. They carried him to the clinic and the doctors dropped what they were doing and went to work on him. Dr. Rivera immediately took over the case. “Thanks, Guys we will give him a complete examination and try and work up a diagnosis but in the meantime I suggest that you have your crew chief get everyone out of that cavern and out of their Mars Suits until we know just what we are dealing with here. February 17, 2108: Tim heard about Joe's mysterious ailment on talk radio. The next morning after breakfast Tim stopped by the clinic to see how Joe was getting along and Juan told Tim that he had passed away shortly after being brought in. Juan also said that another member of the community had come down with the same ailment. The good news was that this person was working on the surface in a Mars suit. Joe's autopsy showed that he had died from inhaling Carbon Dioxide. Dr Rivera scanned the new patient for signs of Carbon Dioxide poisoning and bingo he was suffering from the same thing. They then tested the Mars Suits these two men were wearing and they tested OK. “We think you have been inhaling Carbon Dioxide and that is why you are sick” Dr. Rivera told his patient. “No honest Dr. I didn't breathe in and I had my helmet off for less than a minute.” “Why, in God's name did you take it off in the first place Mr Salva?” Because it was closing in on me, I just couldn't resist taking it off for just a few seconds and I didn't breathe in while it was off.”
Mystery solved, he had his helmet off for less than a minute while he held his breath then when he put it back on he had to take a deep breath before the suit had a chance to clean the Carbon Dioxide out of the helmet. Tim put out a memo to al personnel wearing Mars suits in unpressurized atmosphere, that if you became overcome with claustrophobia while wearing your suit, no matter how Inconvenient it was return immediately to the nearest pressurized atmosphere before removing your helmet. He explained that they had recently had one death and one serious il ness from workers doing this. Once Tims memo and the grapevine word of mouth got out then they had no more problems with this mysterious affliction. Talk radio discussed little else that day. February 25, 2108: The eighth day of tunneling. They ran a pressure test and Paradise passed with flying colors. Late on February 26 Paradise had been pressurized and atmosphere was introduced. Tomorrow the men could work without suits. If there was a breach they would have plenty of time to dawn their Mars suits before the atmosphere al escaped. February 26, 2108: The crews assigned to enlarge tunnels went to work on the first tunnel, the one that ran from the government cavern to Paradise. Tunnel enlarging proved to be a more time consuming task than digging the tunnel in the first place. Much of the work had to be done by hand and wherever they found the walls or ceiling of the tunnel was of loose material it had to be concrete reinforced. What worked best was having three crews at a time working on enlarging and stabilizing the tunnels.
When the crews finished enlarging the tunnel it looked very professional. It had a paved highway for a floor that allowed for two lanes of vehicular traffic. Everything that needed reenforcement had been reinforced with concrete and rebar. The surfaces were al smooth and the tunnel was lit with a bank of lights that ran down the top. There was a pedestrian walking path on one side with additional lights spaced four feet apart. The largest power equipment on Mars could easily navigate the tunnel once it had been finished. March 1, 2108: Tim, Carla, Juan and Lupe were becoming fond of Mars sports and looked forward to a game of shuffle board every evening. The four courts in the government cavern were adequate for the three hundred people that were on the planet before Tims group had arrived but it seemed as though recently they were always busy in the evenings. Tim and Juan final y gave up waiting for a court after an hour. Tim checked around and found that the croquet courts the situation was the same.
March 2, 2108: Tim discussed the matter with Carter before morning muster. “Carter we need more croquet and shuffle board courts, the ones we have are always busy, I was thinking that there is plenty of room in Paradise for such facilities as well as an additional gymnasium. If you have any surplus crews could some of them be assigned to constructing a new recreation facility?” “Never volunteer Tim, you just found yourself a job. Once you have the new facility functioning you can dismantle the old facilities in the government cavern. I think we have some extra equipment for those sports in the supply yard but you will probably have to order additional equipment from the company.”
After muster Carter and another man accompanied Tim to Paradise cavern. “Carter, look at this hot pool and this warm river, if this water is safe perhaps the people could use it for relaxing baths and if that stream is safe maybe it would support fish. We could always breed the fish in enclosed ponds then move them to this stream once they were too large to fit through the exit mesh. That would give us two uses, we could go fishing when we were off duty and we could harvest the fish for the mess hall. We could also raise fish in the river and lake in The Company cavern now that it is heated.” “The fish for The Company cavern are already halfway here from Earth.
Carter walked up. “Frank here and I were just coming to inspect the pool. Frank has his water testing kit with him, any more great suggestions?”
“Yes this where I would like to put the new recreation center and gym, that way we could incorporate the hot pool with the other recreational facilities.”
“Suits me Tim, we could end up with a first class facility here.”
At muster Carter asked for volunteers to move and enlarge the sports center to Paradise. Fifteen people that were not working on anything else at the moment volunteered. Carter then announced that until further notice anyone who had run out of work should report to Tim in the Paradise cavern to see if he needed any additional help.
Tim decided to put the new recreation area on the other side of the parking lot by the spa. The new gym would be integrated into the recreation area. Paradise was rapidly becoming a recreational facility. At least once and sometimes as many as three times a day Tim would get a phone call from Carter asking him to check on the progress of the tunneling crew and find out if they needed anything or Carter might ask him to check on the tables in the dining room, there had been some complaints of benches that did not feel solid when you sat on
them, or Tim would be asked to check up on the cement block production on the surface. One thing after another Carter was asking Tim to handle for him and Carter was seldom seen out in the field. He could always be found in his office, knee deep in paper work.
On several occasions Carter had asked Tim to handle the morning muster. He had a clever way of asking, he would start the phone conversation after Tim answered by saying, “Here is what I need to have you do when you cal muster in the morning, Tim,” then Carter would start listing everything that he wanted Tim to do.” Tim was becoming Carters assistant by default. Carter just kept putting Tim in charge of projects.
The recreation center turned out to be a bigger job than Tim had anticipated. At times Tim had as many as thirty five people working on the project. Tim was constantly being called away to handle some pressing matter for Carter. Tim divided the people working on the project in Paradise into two groups then had the crews pick a crew chief for each crew. Tim delegated responsibility to the crew chiefs to handle things when Carter had him out doing other things.
May 15, 2008: “This is looking really great Tim, what do you want me to work on today?” “I am sure that we will think of more things as we go along Rob but for now we have about completed everything that I had on the plan that Carter approved. Besides the spa and the warm river we now have a nine hole chip and put golf course, ten shuffle board courts ten croquet courts and ten horseshoe pits. There are even public bathrooms and a new gym. We need more equipment but it's all on order.”
No longer did people say, “let's go over to the Paradise cavern,” now they just said, “Let's go to the park.”
May 16, 2008: Abner was inspecting the Paradise cavern. Al of the improvements had been made in the large center and to the left of where the tunnel entered. That was the beautiful part of the cavern. He noticed that beyond the tunnel entrance and off to the right the ceiling dropped off sharply. There was, at the far end, off to the right an area of approximately two square miles where the ceiling ranged in height from forty to fifty feet off the cavern floor. The floor was almost level. There were no stalagmites or stalactites at this end of the cavern. There was a stream of cool clear water dividing the area down the center. Abner got the picture instantly. Here was the future home of the orchard. At the far end of the area, the approximately one square mile that lay behind the stream the air temperature was noticeably warmer. Here, he thought would be the place where he would raise tropical plants. Abner got on the phone and asked Tim “Where are right now, good buddy?” Tim said “I am over doing some finishing touches to the recreation area.” “When you finish there would you mind skipping down to the small end of the cavern, there is something I want to show you.”
“This is what I have in mind for this area, Tim.” Abner then went on to explain his vision of the orchard and the tropical plant farm. “Here is what I propose, Tim, lets build another farm right here in this two square mile area, another farm house, barn and everything. The Yang's could move over here and tend these plants. The job has gotten too big for the six of us at the old farm already. I have been thinking of asking you to assign more permanent people as farmers but I didn't know where to house them. It is important that the people working full time on the farm live on the farm. What I would like to see is four people to take the Yang's place at the old farm, that would give us a crew of six ful time permanent farmers. Then we wil need four more people to live here on this side with the Yang's and tend the orchards and the tropical plants.”
“Do you already have people in mind to fil these jobs, Abner?” “As a matter of fact I do, I have kept a close eye on the people that you have detailed to the farm since it opened and I could give you the list of names any time you want them.” “You can give me the list today, right now if you like. Figure out how many people you can keep busy for the next month, let me know the number and the skil s you need and I wil assign them to you in the morning at muster. You can keep them as long as you have work for them. Surplus labor is my biggest problem right now. It goes without saying that I will need Walter, Thelma, Carter and George to consent to the project and have a scientific crew approve it for environmental impact but I know already that I will get approval and the scientists are also looking for projects. I can get some of them on it today.”
Tim was delighted to have this project. It gave him something for the people to do. He put a call in right then for Carter, Walter, Thelma and George to see if they were available. They were all available and said they would meet Tim and Abner there in less than an hour.
While they were waiting Tim and Abner explored the area further and made several more suggestions to each other.
Once they had all arrived, Tim and Abner showed them the area for the proposed project and described the ideas that they had been kicking around. Everyone seemed thrilled with the idea. George said “When the other scientists and I were looking at the cave find we made a quick pass through here and one of the other scientists had remarked, 'this is where we should have put the farm'
I am sure you will have no objection from the environmental establishment.“
Within two hours it was a done deal. There were quite a few items that had to be ordered from the Company but they would arrive in December when Mars Runner made it's first call on Mars.
May 17, 2008: At muster Tim called out the names of the eight people that Abner had given him. They were four married couples. Tim knew they were all anxious to work on the farm ful time but he asked them anyway, just for the record. Tim suggested that they work out the living arrangements with the other farmers. Of course they could not move in until the new farm house was completed.
Tim then asked for the 100 volunteers that Abner had said he could use and assigned them to the task of building the new far for as long as they were needed.
Abner told the group at muster that within less than four years Mars would be producing most of the food consumed on Mars including bananas, pine apple, coffee and coconuts. There was one more big food group to go, grain. They would find the ideal spot but it would have to be in some yet unseen cavern.
CHAPTER – Tims promotion
May 20, 2008: Carter and Tim were having a cup of coffee at the mess hall that evening while Tim was waiting for Carla to finish. Carter said, “Tim how would you like to have my job as Superintendent?” “Sure but where would that leave you Carter?” “ The reason that you have been running all the operations for the last few weeks is that I have been evaluating how you were able to handle the job. No one other than me knows this but Walter and Thelma are leaving Mars on the Next ship. You are a relative new comer to Mars but you have performed perfectly. You have done everything that I have ask of you. Al I have to do is give you instructions in generalities, and never have I had to spell out the specifics of what I wanted done. I have been offered Thelma's job by The Company and I have selected you to take my job as Superintendent of Construction.
That means that when we reach Utopia it will be up to you to make the construction decisions. You have everything it takes, Tim, you have your engineering degree, your background is clean and I feel I can rely on you. The job is yours if you want it.” Of course I want it Carter, I just don't don't know what to say”.
“There is one more thing you may want to consider, you have mentioned that you intend to stay on Mars and have a family. As you know that you can buy your way out of your contract with The Company for five hundred thousand dollars but if you want I can get The Company to release Carla from her contract. This is a one time deal, it is not something that will be an option for you in the future but it can come now as part of your promotion package.” “Let me talk to Carla about it and see what she says” Tim answered. By then Carla had finished her clean up work at the kitchen and approached them. “Carla, lets go home there is something we need to discus.”
Carla and Tim went Round and Round all evening pointing out the advantages and disadvantages of the offer. In the end they decided that Tim'
s raise to $40, 000.00 per month would more than make up for her loss of Income and she could have a ful time job at the bank working for Alan and Remar until they started their family. When she had to quit work to give berth to their first child she would not be fined. “I don't know anything about working in a bank, Tim.” “ That's OK, neither did Alan or Remar when they opened First Colonial. Now they are real bankers.” So it was decided that Carla should be released from her company contract.
Tim picked Hal Johnson as his assistant. The man was so competent and knowledgeable that you just couldn't overlook him. The men all seemed to like him, maybe his only shortcoming was that he was not a visionary like Tim and Carter.
Alan and Remar were thrilled to have a real live employee that they did not have to pay air fare for. Carla told them, “I know nothing about banking or any other kind of paper work, I have been in food service since high school.”
“That was our situation but we obtained all we needed to learn from email exchanges with Harvard School of Business and these books here in our office. I propose that we first put you on a training program using the same materials that we used. I printed hard copies of all our lessons and I wil feed them to you as fast as you can absorb them.” We can't afford to pay you more than $500.00 per week while you are in training but as soon as you start working we will pay the same wage you have been earning.
March 27, 2008: Carla began training for a career in banking. At first it was all very confusing and at times she thought that she would never get it. Then little by little she made progress. She got to the point that when she read something she could see how it related to something she had previously learned. Luckily she had already learned to touch type on a keyboard and use a ten key adding machine. After the initial shock she began to progress rapidly. CHAPTER – Mars Supply Two Docks
