A Colony on Mars

by Cliff Roehr

  June 15, 2108: Big Lake cavern was pressurized.

  CHAPTER – Super Store opens for Business

  Super Store opened on the first Sunday of June, 2108. There were six hundred people in line when they opened their doors. They had put their shelves up and stocked the store with all the select merchandise that they had been able to transport on the one hundred pallets they had been al owed on the ship.

  They opened the doors at 0900 all of the merchandise, every piece of it, was in the hands of customers by 0930. People had just grabbed anything they could get their hands on, it didn't matter whether it was something they could use or not. With only three registers open it took until 1300 to get everyone checked out. At that point there was no reason to remain open so they hung a sign on the door and reconciled themselves to waiting for the next ship which would be in August. Al three Super Store employees went to work for the bank on a temporary basis until August.

  The following Sunday there was another giant swap meet in the business district which had now become known as the square. Most of the merchandise that had been purchased at Super Store was available for resale to the people that actually needed the items for a slightly higher price of usually twice what Super Store had sold it for. The swap meet also sold out in a few hours and had to shut down.

  Archy had wondered why there were so few people show up for church. The church was open and operating now in the square with cement block benches to accommodate one hundred worshipers. Archy put up a sign in front of the church announcing an evening service to begin at 1900 hours. That service was packed. Archy had successful y solicited twenty residents to form a choir and chosen a choir director from among them. That evening the church was packed and everyone enjoyed the choir and the country and western band that accompanied them. Archy's leaning in the church was heavily toward lots of hand clapping and gospel music. Everyone seemed to have a great time. They particularly enjoyed Archy's preaching that was heavy on the shouting to the lord and bible slapping and Hel , Fire and Brimstone rhetoric. The church had to be doubled in size to accommodate the congregation. Archy only wished that he was not obligated to The Company for the next ten years so he could devote full time to his work as pastor. June 20, 2108: Tim and Carter discussed this with Paul who agreed that Archy was such a positive influence on the community that Carter and Paul requested that be reassigned by The Company as the pastor of the church as his ful time work. After all they needed a full time pastor to conduct weddings, baptisms, funerals and the many other duties that a pastor performed in the community. Paul had already found out that the protestant pastor that The Company was sending to Mars as Chaplain was an Episcopal priest so there would be very little conflict between Archy and the new Protestant Chaplain. Carter took it on himself and contacted the The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisvil e, Kentucky who when they heard about Archy's ministry and viewed a video of one of his services on Mars held a special ordination in absentia ceremony and not only ordained Archy but gave him an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree. Now Archibald Shrimp would a full time practicing minister with his own church and congregation. On Mars he was called the Chaplain.

  While this had al been happening the small side of the new cavern had been sealed and pressurized the large end of the cavern would just have to wait for more equipment to arrive from Earth. Two wonderful discoveries were made when the scientists could get into the cavern and examine it closely. There was adequate geothermal energy in close proximity to provide power to several large generators, maybe enough to power al of Utopia.

  June 30, 2108: The second discovery was a vein of gold larger than any vein that had ever been discovered on Earth, anywhere.

  “The company is going to be very happy to hear about this discovery Carter.” “Now maybe we wil have something to send back to Earth instead of everything coming this way.” “Better see if we have anyone with hard rock mining experience and get them extracting that gold ore right away. I would like to have as much as possible on hand to ship back when the next supply chip gets here in August.

  Tim went to Doris and had her scan the data base of employees and picked out fifteen candidates who had claimed to have the skil s that he was looking for. He called each of them on his cell and ask them to meet him in the small cavern that had just been tamed in one hour. Tim was the first one there and looked around while he waited for the others. Shortly all fifteen had arrived and he said “I would like to show you gentlemen something and then I would like you to tell me what you think.” He lead them to the wall and pointed out the vein. “Wow that is really something.” Tim just stood by and listened to their ensuing conversation. It didn't take long for Tim to choose his foreman. One of the men, Harold Dixon seemed to know a lot more than any of the others. The other men were looking to him for answers. He had a relaxed posture and attitude, was very knowledgeable and communicated his thoughts easily to the others. “You men have just been reassigned to the mine crew. Please advise your present crew chief's of the change. You can get together and decide what al you will need to get started extracting that gold. Harold would you step over here there is something I would like to ask you?” “Sure” Tim and Harold walked about 50 feet away from the other men and Tim said “you seem to know quite a bit about this mining business Harold just how much experience have you had?”

  “I have been a hard rock miner al my life and my father before me spent his life mining, my grandfather was a prospector. My family is from rural Nevada. The mines are pretty well played out there so when this job came my wife and I jumped at it.” “What is your educational background Harold?” “I have a BA in Engineering from University of Nevada, Reno and a Masters in Mine Engineering from Colorado School of Mines, in Golden, Colorado.” “I'm impressed, you wil be in charge of setting up this mine and supervising this crew.

  Make sure that the things these guys have put on the list they are preparing are legitimate and then see if you can find enough of the things you need in the supply yard to get started. There wil be a ship arriving here in August but it is too late to get anything on that ship. We should be getting two ships in December and what you need besides what we already have here will be on that ship.” If you can find enough to get started in the yard your crew can start in the morning. You wil probably be seeing a lot of me around here for a while because among my other chores I am a dril ing engineer and we wil be installing another generator about a mile over there.” Tim pointed toward the hot spots. “Give me a call this evening and let me know if you want all the men that are here or if you need more that are unskil ed. These men here are the only ones that claim to have any hard rock mine experience. I should be able to find you some coal miners though if and when you need more men.”

  June 30, 2108: The next morning Tim allowed his assistant to hold the muster while Tim got his dril ing crew together and began to pil age the supply yard. They found better dril ing equipment than they had used on their first hole in The Company cavern. He then inspected the new generator and found it was almost twice the output of their present generator. He told the men to gather al the equipment that they needed and meet him at the hot spot when the equipment was all in place. These were the men that Tim had worked with on the previous hole and they all pretty much knew what they were doing. They didn't need much direct supervision and Tim already knew which of them would be best qualified to be in charge of the project when he wasn't there. It took them al day to find and move the equipment so they didn't need to cal Tim any more that day.

  Tim then looked up the air quality control supervisor who was one of the Government scientists. “Where do we stand on getting the new atmosphere equipment installed at the Utility cavern?” Tim ask. “So far so good, I was relieved to find that we had everything that we need and it is being moved to the Utility cavern now.” The small new cavern that had just been opened had been dubbed, the Utility cavern because of the generator and atmosphere equipment being installed there. “We should hav
e the new equipment running in a week or so. Then there will be no question that we wil have plenty of atmosphere so we can open the big half of that cavern.” “Crews were already working on the surface sealing the fissures on the big half so it looked like they could open it up within the next week.

  July 1, 2108: tunneling was coming along great on the tunnel to the third new cavern. It would be a 580 footer and the crews were already in ten to twelve feet and another crew was already installing the air lock. Every evening the spa in the paradise cavern was packed with people enjoying the hot water. Some were even swimming in the warm river. The park had turned out to be very popular with the population of Mars.

  Tim could hardly wait to get Big Lake Cavern opened, and the lake stocked with fish. Tim had no idea how they would manage to build boats or rafts to use on the lake but he was sure someone would come up with something. Tim made a note to himself to find out about getting some electric outboard motors, they could always find some Styrofoam or empty drums or something that would float.

  The tunnel enlarging crews had started work on enlarging the tunnel from the Paradise cavern to the Utility cavern.

  Tim, Carla, Juan and Lupe once again started playing shuffleboard in the evenings. They had no trouble at all finding an open court. July 4, 2108: Tim and Carla attended the Saturday night dance and found a table. They danced a couple times while they sipped a cup of tea. Then Carla said she would like some air so they stepped out. No one had yet figured out how to hold fireworks on Mars, and they didn't have any anyway so it didn't seem much like the 4th of July.

  Tim remembered something that he wanted to get from home so he went around the mess hall to go and retrieve it. He was shocked to see about thirty people sitting around in folding chairs pulled up to folding tables all smoking clay pipes. They could hear the music just fine from there and some of them had laid down their pipes to go and dance. Tim spotted one of the men he new in the crowd and went over and joined him. The man casually acknowledged Tim then passed him his lit clay pipe. There was no doubt at all what the pipe contained. Tim respectfully declined but gave the man a big smile. Nothing had to be said.

  On Sunday, after church Tim called Paul and Carter to request a quick meeting. He related to them what he had observed behind the dining room on Saturday evening. “We already know al about it Tim, and we have figured out how to handle it.” “How is that,” Tim ask. “By doing nothing,” Carter responded. If I caught a member of management smoking in public I would ask him not to do that any more, but as long as we don't have a problem during the work week, I see no harm in it. After all pot is now completely legal in twelve states. So far it has not occurred to the Government or The Company to address the issue. We have had a chat with Abner and Darwin over at the farm and they assure me they are giving the stuff away to anyone who comes by and asks for it. Sometimes they say that a person wil slip them some smal amount of money for their trouble but they never ask for anything in return. Since alcohol is not available this pot is the only thing people have to help them relax and have a good time at the Saturday night dance and other such gatherings. If anyone wants to smoke it in their own home we have no objection to that either. Paul and I both agree that everyone would be appreciative if we never brought the issue up. On the other hand if you ever caught anyone smoking on the job you should probably advise them that what they are doing is not al owed and if they persist they could ruin a good thing for everybody.” “That is all I wanted to know, and I have no objection to the non policy,” said Tim. “I wil see to it that Rusty doesn't do a story about it on TV and that everybody gets the word they should not smoke in public when there is a ship in port. I think those should be reasonable restraints, after all we don't want word of this non policy getting back to Earth.” Tim added.

  July 10, 2108: The two gentlemen who had volunteered to produce alcohol had harvested their first crop of corn and finished making their first batch of booze. They only produced about twenty gallons and had already consumed quite a bit of that themselves. No one had planted more corn. Abner had corn growing at the farm but it had not been earmarked for making booze. It appeared that our booze project had failed. Tim had the two men take the remaining booze over to the farm where Abner had agreed to store it until next New years Eve when everyone would get one drink as far as it went. July 1, 2108: Two of the Government workers who had remained on Mars as private citizens had been racking their brain to figure out what kind of business they wanted to go into. They finally hit on the idea of starting a winery and brewery. Ironically their names were Austin Viner and Byron Suds. They had ordered the plants and grow lights and other equipment that they needed to produce grapes, hops, barley and yeast and were working at Burger Boy's until their stuff came in in December. It had cost them almost a mil ion dollars but they were sure they had made a good investment.

  July 6, 2108: Tim went to see Abner that morning to tell him that there was now plenty of room for his orchards. Tim had staked off 40 acres of land in Big Lake cavern. Tim asked Abner to accompany him to Big Lake. The two of them walked the area reserved for the Orchards. “Great said Abner now all I wil need is topsoil and grow lights to cover 40 acres of land.” Abner had been mixing local nitrates with manure from the farm and Martian soil for some time. He had quite a pile of it. “You see this Tim,” Abner said when they returned to the farm. If I mix this soil with the contents of my compost pile, then plant each tree in a 3X3X3 hole fil ed with this mixture I should have a good start at growing our orchard. I can dig the holes now and fil as many of them as possible with this soil I wil start another soil conversion pile at the Orchard. Once you get the grow lights in I wil be able to start transplanting these little trees.

  August 12, 2108: Mars Supply One docked. They had brought only one hundred new construction workers but they had brought two hundred new civil service employees. Mars now had the staff for the public services that they needed. They got 150 new clerical people, one judge, two attorneys, a Public Records Librarian, and even three police officers. One of the clericals was an election specialist and would work in that capacity full time as needed if and when there were to be an election. In the meantime she was assigned to computer input work. One of the new clerical workers was assigned as Tim's secretary. Tim had been taking up too much of Doris time lately with his projects that had nothing to do with her data base work. Tim had accumulated a ton of work for that he had been putting off.

  Among the cargo items that arrived were1,000 new grow lights. Tim already knew they would be on this flight because he had told The Company that the trees they had sent would be of no value without them so they had agreed to put them on the next ship out.

  The ship had also brought ten thousand board foot of utility grade ply wood in various thicknesses. There were the usual food supplies and among other things, lots of odds and ends they desperately needed. Aside from personnel they got the 125 golf carts they had requested. They came all dismantled and crated but assembling them would not be a problem. Everyone was thril ed that they got two hundred thousand fingerling catfish, cutthroat, bluegill, and crappy. Before the ship arrived screens had been installed on the two warm rivers to keep the young fish from swimming off into uncharted regions of Mars. There was a lady ichthyologist that said she had been sent along to care for the fish. She had enough fish food to keep them growing for three months and knew how to process table scraps into fish food. There was the parts necessary to construct a new large geothermal generator, another unit would arrive in December when Mars Runner made it's first arrival. One great thing that came in was five thousand cubic feet of hardwood. It was in various sizes but wood was something they had plenty of uses for. There was cargo for the farm as well, Abner had ordered and now had received twenty mil ion Earth worms. Super Store even received another hundred pallets of merchandise. Tim laughed, now they wil be able to open for business for another one day stand.

  Tim was wrong, this time around it took Super Store into the sec
ond day to sell everything that they had.

  Ever since Tim had arrived the new arrival's had all had housing waiting for them. The previous crop of new arrivals and this group had rooms in row houses, They had started using common walls between the units instead of building individual houses as they had done at first. They would build another row of rooms that shared a common wall at the rear of the room. The completed units resembled motels. The buildings were then given a number fol owed by a dash and then a letter, as in 354-C. There were 20 units to each building so they would letters up to T.

  Because of the irregular work hours the kitchens and dining rooms had started staying open 16 hours per day. They would just transition from breakfast to lunch to dinner and people could eat any time they pleased. The kitchens had started offering more choices of food and serving buffet style rather than just serving everyone that came through the line the same meal. The Government kitchen always offered a different food selection than The Company kitchen. Residents were free to eat in either dining room. For the most part the vegetables were fresh from the garden and both dining halls usually offered a salad bar, and a choice of dressings. More cooks and kitchen help were arriving on each ship so they had plenty of help in the kitchens. In addition to these changes it took standing in line for 20 minutes or more to get a Big Boy and fries.