A Colony on Mars

by Cliff Roehr

  One of the new caverns about four miles out from Arizona had a unique set of features. The cavern covered about sixteen square miles but the floor was certainly not level. It would have been a tremendous engineering feet to even have attempted to level it. The floor of the cavern looked like the side of a mountain on Earth. The cavern had been tunneled into at the low side. It would have been impractical to have allowed for such a steep clime to exit the cavern so the crew just left the air lock in place. They dril ed another tunnel out of the previous cavern into the next cavern off to the right of the sealed cavern. The floor of the new cavern that they reached was relatively flat. They just continued on through that cavern and continued opening new caverns. They figured the steep sided cavern would never serve any worthwhile purpose. On an inspection tour Tim donned his Mars suit and asked to enter the sealed off cavern. After seeing it he couldn't get it out of his mind. He came up with an idea. After talking with the atmosphere control group he was elated. He wrote up a proposal under the name of one of his corporations. He plainly stated in the offer that he was not only the CEO of that company but that he was the only stockholder. Tim offered to purchase the cavern for one mil ion dollars. He was first told that he should submit it through the Company, Mars Colony, Inc. since they owned the abandoned cavern, but when he pointed out that it would be a conflict of interest for him to do that because he was the Company Manager, they agreed to have the Council act on approval of the offer. The offer was accepted but no one could understand why Tim wanted the useless cavern. The purchase was made with a ten percent down payment and payments for 30 years at seven percent interest.

  Since there were so many people wanting title to the land they lived on Tim decided to have a couple with Real Estate appraisal experience start appraising the property that people occupied and setting a price for purchasing the real estate. The bank had agreed to make thirty year mortgages with ten percent down at 7% interest. The first applicant was Abner Jacobs, who had recently formed a new closed corporation with the three couples who worked the farm as the only other stockholders. The Company was called Paradise Farms, Inc. They wanted to buy the entire Government cavern and the old company cavern and the orchard. They did not want to buy the installed utilities but agreed to give The Company access to them. The appraisal came in at only eight mil ion dollars and Abner jumped at it. He transferred $800,000 from their corporate bank account to Mars Colony, Inc and all the principals signed the mortgage papers. From then on when you crossed from Paradise to the old area you encountered a new sign that read “Welcome to Paradise Farms.”

  Hour Glass, Inc. was the next company that wanted to purchase the land that they leased from the company. Unlike Abner's farm they had been private a enterprise business since Inception, it is just that had leased their land from the company. The appraisers were instructed to appraise the value of the raw land only and not the crops and improvements which had been installed by the tenants. Their appraisal for just the land came back at 26 mil ion dol ars and Hour Glass, Inc. opted to buy it. They could have paid all cash by this time but took the mortgage anyway.

  Many of the factory managers of production facilities located in New Phoenix quickly formed new corporations some were closed corporations and some were traded on the over the counter exchange operated by Paul Silverman. They obtained appraisals and in all cases the corporations bought the businesses, land, buildings, machinery and equipment. A couple of them had thought appraisals had come back a little on the high side and had ask for a hearing. The two attorney's would plead the case before a committee designated by the Council and the Committee would render a verdict. They usually split the difference and everybody had thought they had won the case. After attorney fees they had both lost.

  @CHAPTER – Mars Runner Returns

  May 28, 2109 : Six hundred new immigrants were on board, half of them to open more than fifty new businesses, the other 300 were workers for Mars industries. Cargo contained the machinery and equipment, furniture and fixtures to expand existing industry on Mars, and the for the new businesses. June 18, 2110: A new one hundred bed hospital opened in New Phoenix equipped with al the latest medical equipment from Earth. The staff Included at a minimum, two specialists in every major category of medical arts. There was a new small medical col ege program started a year later with 22 students in the first class. Practicing Dr's served as the instructors. Upon graduation the students were to serve a two year stint as interns and then an apprenticeship with the doctors who were practicing the specialty they had selected. Pediatrics and family medicine were very popular but there were two doctors in New Phoenix practicing family medicine who had specialties in geriatric medicine though there were no geriatric patients at this time.

  Abner finally got the Earth worms he had ordered, along with the cups, lids and five hundred pounds of corn meal that would feed them for years. He got permission to raise them on a smal plot of land at the farm. The worms multiplied rapidly. Abner did not start selling them until his stock had doubled then he let everyone know over talk radio that he had worms for sale. Business was brisk. Abner and the other five people on the farm only worked with the worms for sale when they were off duty but they were allowed to keep the money that they earned.

  The fish had a chance to mature and multiply. Fishing was now fair to good in more than thirty lakes and streams on Mars. Boats with electric motors trolled the lakes, people partied and cooked on the docks. As predicted the Ivy had spread, climbing up the wal s of all the caverns. Now when one traveled anywhere on Mars they got the impression that they were in a place of lush greenery because growing greenery was what the eye caught no matter what direction one looked. Most of what they were seeing was Ivy but all of the gardens, vineyards and orchards were thriving. September 14, 2110: One of the women who had remained on Mars when her contract was up with the Government approached Abner one evening. Abner I took a job at Burger Boy because I couldn't decide what kind of business I would enjoy working at. I have enough money to go into business for myself and I do a lot of fishing. I think what I would like to do is to open a bait and tackle shop. If I did that would you keep me supplied with worms. The worked out a deal for Sarah to market the worms. Sarah then placed a large order with a sporting goods wholesaler in California. The next thing she did was to have friends of hers and the people working on the farm go to Super Store and buy all the fishing gear they would sel them. Once she had all the new fishing gear on Mars she leased the lot built the building in the square at The Company cavern and hung out her shingle. “Sarah's Bait and Tackle Shop”

  Everyone on talk radio could talk of nothing else for a few days. Some of them were not too happy because Sarah had doubled the price that she had paid Super Store for her inventory and raised the price of the worms that she got from Abner. People grumbled a little but they understood. Sarah became the local fishing guru and gave free advise with every item she sold. Within six months she had received her own inventory from California and Super Store had replaced theirs. Sarah's business was a success and Sarah was a very happy camper.

  February 3, 2111: Over the years since Tim and Carla had arrived, a few pet lovers had bit the bullet and paid the one hundred thousand dollars fare to have a dog, or a cat and a few cases even a parrot brought to Mars. Tim had finally realized that on Earth having a pet around was a part of growing up, and the kids now growing up on Mars were missing out on this experience. With the arrival of each new ship there was less and less demand to Include only critical items on the cargo manifest. Also there was the fact that Mars was now able to provide ample food for the population and stil have a surplus. Tim had arranged for one couple who had completed their contracts with the Government to open a pet store. He also arranged for them to be able to import up to one hundred pets aboard every ship that arrived from now on to be shipped for $100.00 each, providing the pet store owner agreed to no more than double his money when he resold them on Mars. The pet store owners proved very canny and began
to purchase females that were pregnant or in heat. By 2117 there would be thousands of pets of every kind on the planet. So many that New Phoenix had to establish an Animal control agency and a pound, where pets could be adopted. No pet was ever subjected to euphemism on Mars.

  April 4, 2112: There almost one hundred children in New Phoenix due to start Kindergarten but so far there were no schools. Not only were there almost one hundred this year but there would be twice that many next year. Tim authorized funds to build and equip a school. Tim provided enough land but only authorized hiring or reassigning enough teachers to handle Kindergarten and preschool programs. Tim warned the council that this facility was hereby donated to them and they should construct the buildings and hire the teachers by next year when they would have first graders to contend with. This lead to the bank putting up the funds and the local Government obligating itself for repayment. The council became disparate and had to figure out some kind of tax scheme to support the schools. They debated all sort of taxes but there just wasn't enough tax base to provide the funds that they required short of imposing an Income tax.

  May 15, 2112: The council enacted an Income tax bil , then realized they also needed an Internal Revenue Service to collect the tax. Soooooooo on.... May 16, 2112: They created the IRS of Mars. This served as an interesting beginning to a very familiar cycle. They had already realized some Income from DMV fees, but they started considering a duty tax also. As a result of this the first grade classrooms were built, equipped and staffed with local tax revenue. So far so good but they had the second grade looming over their heads.

  CHAPTER – Mars gets a Zoo, Tims Investment

  August 12, 2116: Tim was at home one evening and little Jimmy who was now in Kindergarten was looking at pictures in an Earth book entitled “A Day At The Zoo” Jimmy kept asking Carla and Tim about the animals that he saw in the book. Tim and Carla did the best they could to explain each one to him but finally Tim said to Carla, “That does it we are going to have a Zoo in New Phoenix.” Six months later the zoo was a reality only The Company intervened to a degree. The Company had a mandate in their contract with the Government that they had signed years before prohibiting them from exporting any animals from Earth that could be considered a threat to mankind. They couldn't send venomous snakes because they might bight someone, they couldn't send bears because they might maul someone, they couldn't send wild cats because they might attack someone, and they couldn't send elephants because, well, they were just too damned heavy to handle. Mars got it's zoo but it mostly contained llamas and alpacas and the like. They got five Panda's, some kangaroos and other harmless Marsupials a large variety of harmless bird species. Actually Panda's and kangaroos could harm people but the company fudged a little on the rules for certain animals.

  Parrots abounded on Mars. Most were wild but many people had tamed them for pets. There were more than twenty varieties of parrots. They could be found in all the caverns. The Zoo had opossums and raccoons and badgers and penguins but nothing that man need fear. There were even twelve head of Cattle brought up from Earth and displayed at the zoo. Even though cows produced an enormous amount of methane the atmosphere could handle twelve of them. The herd was never al owed to become larger than that. The surplus animals were slaughtered for meat but the kids never knew that. It was OK with the kids that there were no dangerous animals, they loved going to the zoo. Chimps and monkeys proved to be the most popular with the kids. Ant's and flies didn't really belong in a zoo but the zoo had those also. They, it seems had invited themselves.

  March 21,2117: The value of Tims stock in Mars Colony, Inc. had gone up one hundred fold in the nine years he had been buying it. He figured the time was right to get out of the market, draw his Swiss Account down to one hundred dollars, cancel his trust agreement with his bank on Earth and then somehow arrange to have the funds transferred to his account at First Colonial Bank in New Phoenix. He felt he could better handle his investments himself in New Phoenix. Tim worked out a deal to have Paul's family arrange the transfers. Of course Paul's family charged a ten percent handling fee but there were no inquiries from the IRS. When all was said and done Tim ended up with a little over one hundred mil ion dollars divided up between his seven different First Colonial accounts.

  March 23, 2117: The first thing that Tim did was to order twenty mil ion dollars worth of products from Earth. These included Redwood, Cedar, Glass, furnishings for hotel rooms, furnishings for a first class bar and restaurant and two mil ion dollars worth of winter sporting goods. Tim also ordered over one thousand warm hooded jackets. The items were all promised for delivery within the next six months. Tim contracted with the private sector to have his sloped floor cavern sealed and pressurized. The temperature inside the cavern was a consistent twenty nine degrees.

  Tim once again contracted with a private sector firm to do extensive grading and sculpturing of his hil side. The hil was more than a mile higher at the high side than it was at the low side. After descending for four miles it leveled off making a flat plane extending to the far wall on the low side. Tim purchased an old atmosphere making apparatus that was now being stored in reserve. He had the machine instal ed in his cavern. With the modifications that he already knew could be easily made he had a new control installed on the machine that raised the moisture level of the atmosphere in the cavern enough to generate falling snow when it was set above a setting of seven. He turned it to eight and let it snow. The next ship to arrive on Mars brought the building materials that Tim had ordered. The next brought the equipment and merchandise. Tim had a new three stage automatic opening airlock installed in the tunnel leading to his property. The tunnel had been expanded to allow for one lane of traffic in each direction as well as a moving sidewalk to accommodate pedestrian traffic in and out of the facility. The traffic was channeled into a huge cement block building with a parking lot, benches tables, several fast food restaurants and several other small businesses . One of the small business sold and rented Nordic clothing, another sold all sorts of ski paraphernalia. There was a desk manned by several employees seated at terminals that made reservations and sold entertainment packages that included food and lodging while vacationing in the cavern. The one week beginners package included seven days and six nights with unlimited use of the ski lift, a room and all meals for $6,000.00 beginners were eligible to attend as many beginner classes as they wanted when they bought the beginners package. The entry building was always heated to a comfortable 74 degrees. There was an exit triple sliding doors at the back of the building leading into the cavern. Large signs warned the patrons not to pass through these doors unless they were dressed for cold weather. Once inside the cavern the customer could board a free tram that would whisk them away to the Lodge. Just beyond the lodge there was a one hundred acre skating rink that was always open and always available to the public without charge. Of course the only place on Mars that sold ice skates and winter clothing was Tims store in the entrance building. By the time the project was completed and opened to the public Tim had invested virtually all of the money he had accumulated. The ski lodge proved so successful that Tim started recovering his investment in record time.

  CHAPTER – New Phoenix, an American City

  September 27, 2117 Tim and Carla Look back on their Mars Experience: Tim sat at a table with Carla and little Jimmy in Downtown New Phoenix. They were at Pablo's Mexican Restaurant, Carla was drinking a glass of Martian Chablis that had been re rated from good to excel ent. There were 427,520 acres in New Phoenix and Tim had his. With a five bedroom ranch house sitting on it, unlike most homes Tims home actual y had a roof and doors and windows just like they had on Earth. Al of the furniture had been selected from the internet and ordered from Earth. Some of it had arrived and some of their furniture was stil en route. In the meantime they were making do with the cheap knock down stuff. Tim's home was equipped just as it would have been on Earth with an up to date al electric kitchen, flush toilets, everything that any home maker
on Earth could want Carla had on Mars. “Tomorrow is an anniversary for us Carla, it was ten years ago tomorrow that we first set foot on Mars. Our contract with The Company is up tomorrow. How about it, do you want to return to Earth?” “Carla gave him a quizzical expression and said “What are you nuts, I don't even want to go there for a visit. December 31, 2117, January 1, 2118: Revelers had packed the downtown area to see the new year in. Tim and Carla were having coffee at home and listening to Rusty on MARS-TV. Rusty had described the way things had been at that New Years celebration ten years earlier when they had only two caverns. Rusty then launched into a rundown on the status of things today. What a difference ten years had made.

  “The Mars orbiter has been repositioned over the Utility cavern and everything and everyone that arrive from Earth is deposited there. Abner's farm and Graces fish hatchery are all that remain in the old company cavern. The almost dry lake at New Phoenix has been fil ed and populated with over 20 varieties of fresh water fish. The old Government cavern would look like a ghost town except that everything that could be pil aged has been. Abner has been talking about planting more fruit trees there next year once he gets more grow lights. Al the bureaucrats now work out of the new State office building in New Phoenix.”

  “The Winery has usurped the entire half of the Hour Glass where their original winery and brewery once stood The facility now covers some nine thousand acres. One thousand acres are now planted in corn. The new distillery started bottling a whiskey made from eighty percent corn two years before. Their new product comes out at 160 proof, eighty percent alcohol. Many of us are feeling the after effects of that product this morning.” (Hour Glass Corp., or as the local people called it 'The Glass' had intended to age the product in wood but were never able to acquire the necessary casks.) The Martian grapes are magnificent, a bottle of good Martian wine wil fetch $500.00 in New York. Most of the output however was consumed on Mars. The brewery even sold their beer in bottles now but there were stil those that swore it was not as good as what they used to get in the gal on jugs.)