‘’Excellent! First stop will be my office on the ground floor, where I will distribute the weighing-down pads appropriate for each of your suits.’’
Turning around, Nick led the small family to the nearest elevator and called a cabin. The ten-level ride down was both smooth and fast and the six of them soon stepped in the central hallway of the tower’s ground floor. As they were passing various offices and shops, Nick described them quickly for the family’s sake.
‘’To your right, you will see the entrance to the tower’s kindergarten and daycare center, where children of up to six years of age can be educated and cared for while their parents are out working. Your little son Monti will be able to go there, starting next Monday. Next, on your left, is the tower’s infirmary, where a nurse on duty will examine and treat residents as needed. If an injury or sickness proves above her ability to treat it, she will then have the patient transferred to the city’s hospital, which is a fully equipped and manned advanced medical facility. Then, you have the tower’s gymnasium, which has an assortment of exercise machines and weight-lifting equipment. Outside the tower, on its patio facing Lake Styx, you will find a large external pool, two tennis courts and, most importantly for you, a well-equipped children’s playground, complete with a sand square.’’
The eyes of the three Aboriginal children lit up at those last words, while grins came to their faces. Nick finally stopped in front of a large door bearing a sign saying ‘Superintendant’. The door was not locked and Nick simply opened it, letting the family inside a fairly large reception room where a mature woman sat behind a desk supporting a computer and a videophone. Nick turned half around and presented the woman to the Djiningwinans.
‘’This is Misses Juliette Chablis, my secretary and receptionist for the tower. Her job is to answer the questions and requests from the 693 present occupants of the tower and to help them as much as she can. Another secretary, Miss Minnie Makwando, fills the post during the evenings and nights. If you have any problems, don’t hesitate to call them: they are here to help. Juliette, this is Bo Djiningwinan and his family. I will let you first record their arrival in the building and register them, then I will give them weighing pads for their fat suits.’’
Juliette, a medium-built woman in her mid-forties and with long brown hair, smiled to the Djiningwinans and signaled them to approach her desk.
‘’If you will please pass me for a minute your citizen cards, I will register you in, so that you can use all of the tower’s facilities without problems. What apartment are you occupying?’’
‘’Apartment 1015, Misses Chablis.’’ answered Bo while collecting the citizen identity cards of his wife and three children, which he then gave to the secretary. Juliette punched a few commands on her computer, then scanned the identity cards one after the other, punching in more commands with each card. Less than two minutes later, Juliette was giving back the cards to Bo while smiling to him.
‘’Here you are, sir. You and your family members are now fully registered as residents of this building, with full access to its services and facilities.’’
‘’Thank you very much, Misses Chablis.’’
Next, Nick led them to a weight scale and storage cabinet sitting in one corner of the receptionist’s office and had little Monti stand on the scale, which was designed to take account of Mars’ low gravity. Looking at the display showing the calculated total weight of weighing pads needed for the toddler boy, Nick then took out of the cabinet the appropriate number and size of pads needed for his FWCS and inserted them in the pouches sewn to his fat suit, distributing them around equally while talking aloud for the benefit of the Djiningwinans.
‘’The pads used in your fat suits are both flexible and compact, in order to keep comfortable the wearing of your fat suits, and do not absorb liquids, so they won’t become heavier if you are ever drenched by water. Their fabric also contains lead particles, which makes them denser and also provides you with some protection against radiations if you are ever accidentally exposed. I strongly urge you to wear your fat suits at all times during the day, including when practicing sports, so that your bodies could stay fit and strong enough to allow you to visit Earth in the future without encountering medical problems due to weakened bone structures and muscle mass. You should of course take off your fat suits before going to swim in our external pool. You will be each issued two spare sets of fat suits later tomorrow, so that you could wash the suit you wore on a given day, but remember to take out the pads before you put the suit in the washing machine. By the way, we have a communal Laundromat on this floor, with the cleaning products provided for free. As for the cleaning of your apartment, cleaning robots will take care of it, coming in on a daily schedule or on call. Your suits will be exchanged as needed in the future, as your children grow up. The only time when the wearing of a fat suit is advised against is in the case of women in late stages of pregnancy: they already have some extra weight to carry.’’
Merindah smiled on hearing that.
‘’That makes eminent sense, Nick. The administrators of the colony seems to have some solid common sense.’’
‘’Well, you certainly don’t want some nitwits to be in charge of this place, believe me. Just adapting to Mars is already a demanding task requiring constant attention and precautions. Well, your little Monti is now all fitted. Next!’’
Another fifteen minutes and the whole Djiningwinan family was ready to go, with their fat suits weighed down by pads. Bo jumped up and down a couple of times and flexed his arms and legs, testing the final result.
‘’This is neat! I feel nearly exactly as if on Earth, in normal gravity. Whoever thought about these suits was a genius. This is truly a simple, cheap and effective solution to a problem that could have caused a lot of long-term grief.’’
‘’Indeed! Well, time to lead you to our cafeteria, so that you could have brunch.’’ said Nick before leading the family out of the office and in the central hallway, where he walked them to the building’s cafeteria. The spacious room, well illuminated by large windows covering three of its walls, was nearly deserted at the time, something that didn’t surprise Nick. Only a handful of residents and one attendant at the food counter were present at the time. Bo and Merindah were struck by the fact that there was no need for them to register their use of the cafeteria, nor did the attendant ask for their identity cards before serving them. Such a concept of free food on demand was already a striking difference to life on Earth, where either money or a ration card was needed to get something to eat. While the lunch menu items were not yet ready to be served, the brunch items proved to be both abundant and varied, with Bo and his family settling on omelets with a variety of bacon, sausages, potatoes and toasts. Nick accompanied them to their selected table but only took a cup of coffee for himself, sipping it slowly while exchanging small talk with the Djiningwinans and describing to them in more detail the facilities and services available at the tower.
Once the Aboriginal family had finished eating, Nick led them to a large vertical display panel set near the main entrance of the building.
‘’This is an interactive digital map of Elysium City and of its various annexes, which form a large ring around the shores of Lake Styx. The cavern containing Lake Styx and the city has a diameter of 5,740 meters at water level, with the ceiling being 13,100 meters above us. We are here, in the Southern District, near the southern access elevator well. Connected to the city’s ring at right angles, like the pokes of a wheel, are a total of twelve large annexes, each 1,500 meters long and 250 meters wide. Those annexes, which can be individually sealed in cases of emergencies, like fires and accidental decompressions, are used as either agricultural centers, fish farms or industrial complexes and are where the majority of the city residents are employed. We have only one sheep farm, situated in the nearby South-southeast Farming Complex, so I suppose that it is there that you are going to work, Bo. Its entrance is about 300 meters to
the east of here, an easy walking distance. Lakeside Boulevard, the main artery of Elysium City, forms a closed loop around the lake and gives access to the whole city and its annexes via a well-served bus route that literally runs around the city. You can also call a robotic taxi from a console at the reception desk if you need one. The present annexes are regularly dug further and enlarged as we add new industries and agricultural complexes to the city. As you were able to see by yourself on arrival, the city has plenty of trees, bushes and grass areas everywhere. Those contribute both to the quality of life and to a clean atmosphere in the city. The atmosphere over the lake is also breathable. By the way, despite the abundance of patios with BBQ grills you will see around, including next to our external pool, BBQ grills are strictly of the electric type, to avoid polluting the air. The only places where you will see functioning smoking ovens will be in specialized food factories, where special air filtration and recycling units have been installed. To come back to this building, the nearest primary school is here, some 200 meters away. That’s where your Daku and Bindi will go on Monday. Well, that’s about it for the moment. Do you have any questions, Bo?’’
‘’In truth, I would have tons of them but I can’t even decide which ones yet. I will however make a point of chatting with other residents of the tower later today, at suppertime and in the evening. Thinking of it, I would have one question now: would I be allowed to go visit the sheep farm today, even though I am not due to work there before Monday?’’
‘’You certainly can, Bo. In fact, I am sure that the farm manager would be most happy to see you and talk to you about your past experience in Australia. I could call him in advance to set up a meeting with him this afternoon, if you wish so.’’
‘’Uh, to be truthful, I mainly wanted to see their sheep herd: The last sheep herds I saw alive was some nearly three years ago Seeing them again would remind me of the old country.’’
‘’I can perfectly understand that, Bo.’’ said soberly Nick. ‘’All areas and annexes of the city are open to all, except in certain parts of our industrial complexes which could present hazards to visitors. Feel free to visit them whenever you want. On this, I will leave you and your family free to go and walk around. If you need anything, just come and see me or Juliette.’’
‘’We will! Thank you for everything, Nick!’’
‘’My pleasure, Bo.’’ replied Nick before walking back to his office, leaving the Djiningwinans alone in the entrance lobby. Bo and Merindah exchanged looks, with Merindah smiling to her husband.
‘’Maybe we could go see first that Lake Styx, Bo: the idea of a lake on Mars intrigues me.’’
‘’I agree! Let’s go, kids!’’
Finding their way to the lake was easy enough, as the Rosewood Tower sat facing it. They discovered then that huge, airtight observation bays separated the city from the cavern containing the lake, holdovers from the time when the cavern had not yet been pressurized with breathable air. However, those airtight bays were still in place, most probably as protection against some possible accidental decompression of the cavern following some improbable tectonic movement of the crust. What they also found was that large transparent airlocks had been built along the bays at intervals of one hundred meters, airlocks that gave access to the shoreline of the lake. Using one of those airlocks, the Djiningwinans then walked down a large, moderately inclined ramp that connected to both a floating wharf and a wide seaside promenade that followed the shore in both directions. Quite a few people were either walking, jogging or cycling along the promenade, while a few small boats were tied to the wharf. Bo sniffed with delight the strong marine smell of salt water coming from the green waters of the lake.
‘’This place smells even more of the ocean than on the coast near Sydney. I love this!’’
On her part, Merindah looked up along the seaside promenade, then across the lake, with the opposite side of the cavern visible in the distance, nearly six kilometers away.
‘’Building this city in such a place and conditions must have been a truly herculean effort, Bo.’’
She then looked up briefly at the intense source of light illuminating the whole cavern, but had to look away from the dot of bright light after only a fraction of a second.
‘’I don’t know what they use to light this cavern, but it is about as intense as the Sun at home. It certainly does a good job of replicating the Sun here underground. I can also feel some heat from it.’’
‘’I guess that we will have to ask someone about that later on, Merindah. Well, how about we go back inside the city and visit that sheep ranch?’’
The answer from his three children was a chorus of happy cheers, so Bo turned around and, taking little Monti in his arms, led his family back up the ramp and through the airlock.
As Nick Robertson had told them, the annex containing the sheep farm was only a few minutes’ walk from Rosewood Tower and the small family soon stepped through one of the two airlocks connecting the city proper and the annex, one airlock being for pedestrians and cyclists, the other one, much larger, designed for heavy vehicles and large construction modules. Bo felt joy and nostalgia the moment that he was able to look down the vast, high ceiling cavern. The ground was entirely covered with thick, long grass, except for a ten meter-wide paved road forming a peripheral loop road along the outer walls of the cavern. Numerous, regularly spaced steel pillars supported a steel lattice that seemed to form the floor of a second storey covering the whole horizontal surface of the cavern, with the underside of the lattice structure supporting overhead lamps and what looked like multiple large sprinklers. What attracted the eyes of Bo, however, was the herd of sheep visible in the distance, with two horse riders slowly trotting around the herd.
‘’Look, Merindah! They use mounted ranch hands to keep the herd together. I will be able to ride a horse again.’’
‘’That’s great, Bo! You should be quite happy in this new job.’’
‘’Indeed! Let’s walk to the herd and those riders.’’
The family thus started walking on what was essentially 37 hectares of grasslands, adopting a calm but steady pace. When the Djiningwinans came to within 120 meters of the herd of about 300 sheep, one of the horse riders turned his mount around and pushed it to an amble towards the family. The rider came to within seventy meters before he hesitated a bit and shouted to them.
‘’BO? IS THAT YOU?’’
Bo’s surprise at being recognized quickly turned to joy as the rider approached further.
‘’DONALD? DONALD RAMSAY?’’
‘’BO! MY GOD, IT IS YOU!’’ replied the horseman before stopping his mount in front of Bo and bending down to shake his hand. ‘’I was told that a new sheep shearer was due to arrive from Earth, but I had no idea that it would be you. What a nice surprise!’’
‘’The same here, Donald.’’ said Bo while shaking the hand of the one he had known as a young teenage boy who had worked with him at his old Australian ranch near Wagga Wagga, in the state of New South Wales. He then presented his family to the Caucasian man in his mid thirties.
‘’Donald, this is my wife Merindah, my sons Daku and Monti and my daughter Bindi. Merindah, this is Donald Ramsay, whom I worked with at the ranch before meeting and marrying you.’’
‘’It is a pleasure to meet you, Donald.’’ said Merindah while shaking his hand. ‘’How long have you been on Mars?’’
‘’Nearly six years now. I didn’t like how things were developing in Australia because of the rising heat and desertification and decided to try my luck on Mars when they advertised the need for experienced farmhands to work at a sheep ranch. My God, I will have to present you to my wife and kids tonight.’’
‘’And would I know by chance the woman you married, Donald?’’ asked Bo, making Ramsay smile with malice.
‘’I think so: I married Alice Hemsworth, the youngest daughter of the boss of our old ranch. She will be positively delig
hted to see you and your family. How about having supper together tonight, both of our families?’’
‘’That sounds like an excellent idea, Donald. Where do you live in Elysium City?’’
‘’In the Rosewood Tower, not far from this annex. Do you know where it is?’’
‘’I believe so : I just moved in there, in Apartment 1015.’’ replied Bo, a grin coming to his face. Ramsay laughed on hearing that.
‘’No kidding, mate! I live in Apartment 913, nearly directly under yours. How about we all meet at the tower’s cafeteria at, say, six o’clock? We could then go up to my apartment after supper to have a drink together and talk about the good old times.’’
‘’Sounds like a plan, my friend.’’ replied Bo, now feeling truly as happy as he had been in a long time.
CHAPTER 19 – A TIME TO CELEBRATE
11:52 (GMT)
Wednesday, May 14, 2127 (Mars Year 83)
Mars Base One (‘The Nest’), Melas Chasma, Valles Marineris
Mars
‘’Everything is ready, sir. You may step behind the lectern now.’’
‘’Thank you!’’
The octogenarian man climbed the steps to the small podium and took place behind the lectern, where he adjusted its microphone and loaded his planned speech in its teleprompter via a flash drive. The old man was still solid and healthy for his age and, remarkably, kept wearing his ‘fat suit’ under his well-adjusted executive suit, something many elderly Martian residents eschewed in order to lower the loads and stress on their aging bodies. With still a couple of minutes available before his broadcasted address was due to start, he looked behind him to examine with a pang of emotion the brand new spaceship that would form the background to his address. The ‘M.S.S. DENISE WATTLING’ was a thermonuclear-powered spaceship meant to shuttle to Mars orbit and back both heavy cargo loads and up to 400 passengers at a time. If absolutely needed, it could also act as a fast courier ship and do a sprint to Earth, where it could enter its atmosphere and land. In pure technological terms, the DENISE WATTLING represented the most sophisticated level of spaceship building ever achieved by Humanity. However, the most important point about it in the mind of the octogenarian was the fact that it had been built here on Mars, with all its parts and systems also produced on Mars, thus its designation as a Mars Spaceship, or M.S.S., before its name. The ship, which only needed small final internal touches before it could be ready to fly, had been built at the underground shipyard complex of the Melas Chasma Space Yards, itself an annex of the old Mars Base One complex, now better known as ‘The Nest’. The space yards complex had been completed some sixteen years ago and had until now concentrated on building flying rovers and other small flying craft, which were then used to provide transportation services between the various installations and settlements dispersed around Mars. Mars now counted five major population centers, 23 separate mining complexes, three spaceports and a dozen small, varied outposts and research installations. The Nest was one of the five major population centers, along with Elysium City, Tharsis City, Alba Mons City and Ares City. However, what had been Mars Base One, the first permanent Human installation on Mars, would now be nearly unrecognizable to its first occupants. The cavern containing it had been gradually enlarged and its original installations either upgraded or replaced by larger, more modern and permanent buildings. Today, its population stood at over 9,400 residents who worked in the various industrial annexes of the underground complex, of which the Melas Chasma Space Yards was a part.
A Mars Odyssey Page 24
