A Colony on Mars

by Cliff Roehr

  September 17, 2124:: When Tim had al the details of the Presidents plan he called a special meeting of the Council. “As you know, ladies and gentlemen, for the past several years Mars has received little attention from Earth. The United States Government has now decided that the time would be right to open up the Utopia cavern. They are committed to sending us the necessary equipment to handle that huge cavern along with twelve thousand new settlers. Al four of the Arton ships are coming home from Arton now and there is no demand on Arton at the present time for more settlers or anything else from Earth. They will need supplies by next year but for the next few months the Arton ships wil be hauling all their cargo to Mars. I don't believe that we would need to develop Utopia in order to accommodate the people they are sending but I wouldn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. Al twelve thousand settlers wil be arriving between November of 2124 and March of 2125. We need to prepare to absorb all of them within a five month period. The first thing we wil need is a reception center for temporary housing. We wil need to set up kitchen and dining room facilities to feed that many people three times a day and we will need adequate rest room facilities. We should have a well stocked supply room in order to provide them with phones, radios, air mattresses, blankets and personal necessities. Since we anticipate that the first 3,000 of them could be arriving within 45 days we will need to start getting ready for them now. If there are any businesses that have been holding off expansion because of a shortage of employees this might be a good time for them to expand.”

  Perhaps the Council could take over the project of locating jobs for these people or create public jobs for them. Mars Colony, Inc. wil be able to hire a lot of them working on the development of Utopia.

  The list of necessary hardware was obtained from Mars then assembled on Earth and loaded onto the Arton ships as they returned from Arton and Mars. Arton Four was already in Earth orbit so it was loaded first. October 17, 2124: Arton Two returned from Arton with five passengers and several thousand Artonian plants and made Earth orbit. November 5, 2124: Arton Four departed Earth. In addition to the cargo of geothermal generators and atmosphere equipment they carried construction equipment, tunneling equipment and tons of miscellaneous items. Three thousand settlers were taken on board.

  November 12, 2124: The Arton Four made Mars orbit. The six shuttles on Mars began removing the settlers the next day. In New Phoenix they were housed temporarily in the new reception center. These people had been transported to Mars at Government expense and had no contractual obligations to Mars Colony, Inc. as people in the past had when they arrived on Mars. Tim had a company hiring office set up near the entrance to the reception center and began signing people up the day after the first settlers arrived. Tim could not start on the project however until the cavern was sealed and pressurized and the new equipment was unloaded from the ships. Tim already had existing crews working on those jobs. The new employees received a $25,000.00 signing bonus when they were signed to three year contracts so they could find or build a place to live. They continued to dine in the mess hall paid for jointly by The Company and the Council. The Martians were afraid that these new comers would not meet the same high standards as those that The Company had previously hired on Earth and transported up. They were pleasantly surprised to find that the Government had done a pretty good screening job and the ones that they had interviewed so far well screened before being selected. November 27, 2124: Arton Two had been loaded with cargo of heavy equipment and raw materials for the development of Utopia. Three thousand more settlers were brought on board on the 26th so the Arton Two left Earth for Mars the next day.

  December 5, 2124: Arton One returned from Arton and made Earth orbit. The authorities on Mars had notified the President that a bottle neck had formed in Mars orbit. They simply did not have enough shuttle to unload the A1immediately. It had taken the shuttles ten days just to transport the passengers from Arton Four to Mars.

  December 6, 2124: The Arton Two made Mars orbit. The Mars shuttles began transporting passengers to the Utility cavern before starting to unload cargo from Arton Four. The population of Mars had grown by over six thousand in the last thirty days. Mars was easily able to cope with this influx of people. The Company was stil hiring all that wanted employment but The Company deferred to local businesses until they had met their recruitment goals. Once al the passengers from the Arton Two were in the reception center there were four thousand seven hundred people housed there.

  January 10, 2125: Six additional shuttles were nearing completion or in testing in the U.S. These were earmarked for Mars and loaded on the A1as cargo. Once the shuttles were loaded they noticed how much empty space remained in the hold of the A1the ship was filled with another huge assortment of other machinery and equipment.

  January 12, 2125: Three thousand more settlers were loaded on A1and it departed the next day.

  January 19, 2125: A1made Mars orbit. Five Mars shuttles immediately began transporting settlers to the Utility Cavern. The sixth shuttle had developed major mechanical problems and would be out of service for an indefinite period. It turned out that the necessary part had to be sent from the U.S. It was then discovered that the six new shuttles were loaded before the other cargo and must be unloaded last.

  February 7, 2125: Mars Runner makes Earth orbit.

  February 16, 2125: Arton Three returns from Arton and makes Earth Orbit. The part necessary to repair the Mars shuttle was immediately loaded on the Arton Three along with all the other spare shuttle parts that the Government had on hand. A n order was placed with the shuttle manufacturer for more spare parts to replace the stock from the Government warehouse that had been loaded on the Arton Three. An enormous amount of furniture, appliances and household goods were loaded on the Arton Three as their main cargo as Mars had complained that these items were now in critical short supply since the arrival of all the new settlers.

  February 23, 2125: Three thousand settlers were loaded onto Arton Three which departed for Mars the next day.

  February 28, 2125: Mars Runner is loaded with nothing but personal necessities, vitamins and clothing to sustain 13,200 settlers for a long period of time.

  March 2, 2125: Arton Three makes Mars orbit. The four remaining Mars shuttles begin transporting settlers to the planet. Another of the Mars Shuttles had gone down for repairs and would be out of service until the new parts were unloaded from the ship.

  March 9, 2125: Mars Runner is loaded with 1,200 settlers and departs immediately for Mars. Cargo on the Arton Four had stil to be unloaded. The ship had now been in Mars orbit since November 12, 2124 and had yet to be unloaded.

  March 15, 2125: The parts necessary to repair the two shuttle that were in the shop had been unloaded from the Arton Three, the repairs had been completed and the two shuttles were back in service.

  March 20, 2125: Priority had been given to unloading A1because Mars needed those six additional shuttles. By April 1, 2125 the cargo had all been unloaded and transferred to the Utility cavern. Now the crews could commence getting the new shuttles into commission. Unloading of cargo from the A1was completed.

  April 3, 2125: With all twelve shuttles now in service it was estimated that it would stil take over two months to unload the cargo remaining on the three Arton ships.

  April 4, 2125: The A1which had finished unloading broke Mars orbit and headed back to Earth. Shuttles had finished the unloading of the Arton Four and it was preparing to depart the next day.

  April 5,2125: Shuttles worked non stop since the disaster to finish unloading the Arton Four, which left immediately for Earth.

  PART II

  CHAPTER – The Nuclear holocaust

  April 4, 2125: Nuclear war on earth! Their worst nightmare had come true on earth. Nuclear Holocaust, The Islamic militant nations of the middle east had hit Israel with three multi megaton nuclear devices. Israeli ships at sea had immediately retaliated with 112 nuclear devices of their own. Between the time that Israel was hit and the middl
e eastern nations were wiped off the map the Islamics had launched almost two hundred additional nukes toward every nation on Earth that they considered non believers. Immediately after the introduction of nukes, North Korea had launched thirty more nukes at China, Japan and South Korea. Japan, South Korea and China had all launched nukes at North Korea. Pakistan had launched nukes at India and India had launched nukes at Pakistan. Al told there were over six hundred nukes detonated on Earth within two hours. When the war ended there were eleven billion people stil alive on the Earth. They all had received, or would receive a lethal dose of radiation within the next thirty days as the winds carried the contamination throughout the atmosphere of the planet. Al animals on Earth were suffering the same fate.

  Because of superior missal defense systems there were no missals able to penetrate the United States. There were two suicide bombers carrying satchel nukes inside the continental U.S. One detonated his devise in front of 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. Within five minutes of the first missal hitting Israel. The other was detonated at the location of The United States Missal Defense manufacturing plant in Phoenix, Arizona a few minutes later. Two other suicide bombers were apprehended before they could detonate their devises, one in New York City and one at U.S. Missal Defense headquarters at Fort Collins, Colorado. There were two other suit case nukes detonated in North America, One took out Ottawa, Canada, the other Mexico City. Other than these satchel nukes the North American continent had been spared a direct hit.

  April 14, 2125: The seventeen people on duty at the Green Val ey nuclear power station had kept their wits about them. Because the team leader was a qualified nuclear physicist named Tom Eddy, he had taken readings every hour. He gathered the workers together and made an announcement,

  “You al know what has happened on Earth today. We were spared a direct hit but I don't know if spared is the right word. I know that you have all been watching the instruments and you know that the radiation level here at the plant is above normal. It has not reached the critical level yet but it soon will. I am afraid that there is nothing we can do about that, it is going to happen, there is nowhere to hide. Even in the safe room, if we all went in there and shut the door we would eventually run out of critical supplies. This entire planet is doomed. You have two choices. You can go home to be with your loved ones until the end, and that is what I recommend that you do. I have no one to go home to so I am going to remain here to safely shut this plant down. You may wonder, if what I have just told you is true then why bother? The reason is that in fifty to one hundred years this planet will have rejuvenated itself. All of humanity is not doomed, just those of us on Earth. There must be more than one hundred thousand human beings on Mars and Arton who wil want to reclaim the Earth when it is safe for them to do so. When that day comes I would like for them to find this power station intact. If we just abandon the plant it will go to critical mass and add to the contamination which will prolong the day when mankind can return. I would appreciate it if one or two others of you who have nothing better to do with the last week of your lives would remain behind with me to help in this task. Another consideration is that we provide electrical energy to almost half a mil ion people who are stil alive. It would make their final days more comfortable if they continued to receive power. I plan to put on a radiation suit as soon as this conversation ends so I wil be around long enough to provide them power until they have all succored then I intend to shut the plant down properly.” Nine of the seventeen people either agreed to remain at the plant or to go gather their families and return. Tom asked one of those who were leaving to contact the local TV broadcasting station that had a manned antenna site nearby and have them contact as many of the other nuclear power plants as they possibly could and tell them what I have just told you. One of the women said, “I have children at home that I need to be with but I wil inform the TV station technicians of what you have just told us.” “I recorded this conversation Janie so all you wil have to do is to deliver audio recording to them and make sure they listen to it. I will also play a copy of the recording over our power grid radio system and hope that the word gets out. April 14, 2125: Shortly after departure from Mars The A1heard on the radio the jumble of messages coming through from Earth. They elected to chance using warp one briefly within the solar system, something an Arton ship had never done before. Mars was presently at it's furtherest point from Earth and the A1wanted to get there as soon as possible. They kicked into Warp drive for thirty seven minutes. Once they came out of warp they barely had time to fire the retro rockets before making Earth orbit. April 15, 2125: Tom Eddy had heard back from over one hundred of the more than five hundred nuclear plants in the United States and Canada. They had left messages for him saying that they had already decided on the same course of action that he had proposed or had decided to when they got his message.

  April 16, 2125: Tom Eddy and his loyal crew shut down the plant safely then removed their radiation suits and wil ingly drank the deadly cocktail that they had prepared.

  April 16, 2125: Humanity, on Earth ceased to exist.

  CHAPTER – Mars welcomes the new arrivals

  April 17, 2125: Al together there were 13,452 human beings landed on Mars, this figure Included the 1238 that they knew were on board Mars Runner which was en route. At that moment Mars had a population of 54,354. Almost 8,000 of these people were stil refugees being housed in what was referred to as the reception center. The officers from the Arton ships said that there were another 45,000 or so settlers already on the surface of Arton. So the total population of the human race had been reduced to fewer than100,000. None of the officers or passengers from the ships had ever been on Mars. Al they knew was that it was a mining colony with an observatory . The Arton crews knew that on occasion they had gone out of their way on their return voyages from Arton to load oar and other cargo but they had no idea what Mars was real y like. The cargo they had picked up had been packaged and put into orbit before they got there. They just approached the orbiting cargo, brought it on board and departed immediately for Earth. Each group of new arrivals had at least one member of their group say, “I can't believe my eyes” when a fleet of open air buses picked them up in the Utility cavern and whisk them away to New Phoenix.

  Keep in mind that these were people who had just lost their whole families on Earth. Most of the adults on Mars had also lost their families on Earth but that was then and this was now. Tim and Hal and the new director of Government operations met with them at the State office building. Tim introduced himself and said ”I guess we all know what happened on Earth on April 4, so the question in everyone's mind is where do we go from here?” The space ship officers did not have a clue. They; did not have a basis to make a decision on, and they knew it. One of them ask Tim “Mr. Erkin, how many more people could Mars accommodate, are you overcrowded already.”

  Tim responded, “Our present population is approximately 55,000. We could easily sustain another mil ion people and remain self sufficient. Theoretically the planet could eventually sustain a population of three hundred mil ion people, but only if all of the known caverns on the planet were fully developed. The present size of our developed caverns gives us the approximate land mass of 3056 square miles, our eventual land mas could be about equal to the size of the continental United States.“ “Do you have enough food for all those people?”

  another officer asked. “Certainly”, Tim responded. “ We have farms, ranches, orchards, wineries and herds of animals to more than sustain over one hundred thousand people now and 80% of our available land space is undeveloped.

  “Then why aren't there more people on Mars,” another officer asked. “Because you guys keep hauling them to Arton,” Tim answered. “I never dreamed,” said the officer, “I just thought Mars colony was a few guys extracting oar on a dead planet.”

  Before we continue with this discussion I want you people to take a day and tour of Mars, or at least some of it, you can't possibly see it al in
a day. That would be like trying to see all of Texas in a day. Most of us live here in New Phoenix. We don't have more cities because there is no need. We all have everything right here. Right next to New Phoenix is Utopia, it is an enormous cavern, larger than all of our other caverns combined. So far we have not developed Utopia but we now have everything we need to open Utopia. We have discovered pressurized and introduced atmosphere to several caverns larger than either of these large caverns that we occupy but they are just sitting vacant at the moment. Tel me, how many people are living on Arton and what are their living conditions? Tim asked” “Their highest ranking officer responded, there are a little over 45,000 humans scattered around the planet. The air is similar to Earths, the size of the planet is similar to Earth. The planet could eventually house five to seven bil ion people. There are large animals that you would think of as dinosaurs, in abundance, there are an estimated two hundred thousand humanoids, that have formed into tribes and dwell in caves much as humans did on Earth ten mil ion years ago. Overall the land mass on the planet is a little larger than earth. There are no continents just islands. No matter where you are on the ocean you can see several islands. Just try and picture it as Earth was ten mil ion years ago.

  First see our planet but then as I see it our alternatives are to transport al of us to Arton or to transport all of the people on Arton to Mars or to have Mars continue to provide the things you were getting from Earth for you to transport to Arton and for mankind to inhabit both planets so that a catastrophe like the one that destroyed the Earth Yesterday can never destroy mankind. I suspect that the cargo that you have been transporting to Arton Included a lot of weapons and we have no weapons on Mars, none. We could tool up and turn out weapons but we don't have any now. Also be aware that we wil loose contact with Arton when you exhaust the energy supply in your ships. We do not use nuclear energy on Mars, we rely exclusively on geothermal energy. We have found uranium ore on the planet but we have never mined any because we don't need it and we don't want it. After what happened yesterday, I don't suppose we wil ever want it. My next point is that we stil have the Mars Runner that is capable of travel to Earth. In fact it is on it's way to Mars now loaded with cargo and settlers. It should arrive in Mars orbit around the middle of August. I am sure than in a few years we will want to send inspection teams to Earth to see how hot it is and to see if there are any people left alive anywhere.