A Colony on Mars (20 page)

December 2, 2108: Tunneling starts to reach the fifth cavern, 1100 feet away.

December 15, 2108: The fissures had all been sealed and pressure tested and atmosphere introduced. The temperature in the hour glass was 86 degrees. Back in the Government cavern the temperature had been down in the forties when Tim and Carla first arrived and the caverns had to be heated for people to be comfortable. With the tunnels open and fans circulating the air the temperature had equalized at 72 degrees everywhere and nothing had to be heated.

December 15, 2108: Grace had more water than she new what to do with. She was trapping fish from the other ponds and introducing them to the lakes in the Hour Glass. Walkways were laid so as to encircle each of the lakes and along the rivers. It might be a couple years before the fishing got really good, and no one was allowed to fish at the Hour Glass lakes for over a year but the fish that Grace had introduced were thriving. Grace now had a full crew working for her doing nothing but making fish food, and migrating fish. Talk radio spent a lot of time talking about fishing.

CHAPTER – Mars Runner makes it's first docking

December 22, 2108: There was a lot of interesting and long awaited cargo on Mars Runner. The two items that got the most attention however were 150 twelve foot fiber glass fishing boat kits, They came disassembled with the boats stacked one inside the other. There were several large crates with hardwood seats, fixtures and oars. There was even 150 two horsepower electric trolling motors, which also came partially disassembled. Within just a few days everything was assembled before Tim ever got around to assigning a crew to do the work. Soon there were boats available everywhere that fishing was allowed.

The second item of intense interest to the workers on Mars and their talk radio show was the arrival of the wine and beer making equipment and plants. There was also enough grapes hops barley and yeast ready to use for them to start production as soon as they were set up. They chose the hour glass for their operation. Byron and Austin had leased eighty acres from The Company they had already learned what they thought they needed to know to make beer and wine. In the public interest and because there was so much surplus labor around, Tim approved them having the use of four crews if they agreed to keep them busy. The brewery and two houses appeared almost overnight. Within the week the rest of their eighty acres had been planted in barley, hops, grapes and sugar cane. They even had volunteers showing up after work and on their days off to see if they could help. With their initial order they had ordered a supply of the Mars soil converter plus two tons of fertilizers and ten mil ion Earth worms. The soil in this vineyard and farm would be very rich indeed. They first tried making their beer and wine in five gallon containers so as not to ruin too much of it if things didn't turn out as expected. What they got for their trouble was drinkable beer and wine but it was none too good. One of the construction workers that had helped them in setting up their facility tasted both products and said, “I thought you guys new what you were doing, this is slop,” he said as he took another big drink. “I suppose you could do better, wise ass.” “Oh hell yes, I was an apprentice with Barble Beer before I got this Job. I'l make you a deal' let me make a carboy (five gallon water bottle) of beer and if it is not better than this I wil drink it all. Austin said “No matter who made a carboy of beer you would drink it all” “True.” said Gene, the construction worker but seriously maybe I could give you some pointers.” With that he went into the brewery, got out the equipment and proceeded to show them how to brew a smal batch of beer. Ten days later it was ready to drink. “This may be the best beer I have ever tasted,” Byron, Suds said “How would like a part time job as brew meister? Maybe I can do better than that. Gene cal ed Tim on his cell, “Tim where are you?” Gene ask. “Carla and I are at the spa, who is this Gene?” Yeah it's Gene, look Byron and Austin and I have a deal for you we wil be right there.” They all three jumped into the cart that Gene had come over in and took off or the spa. They were there in ten minutes. “OK Tim here is the deal, I would like for you to give me a permanent assignment in the Hour Glass or doing something that would benefit The Company enough that you could justify it, have you got anything like that?” “I don't know of anything off hand Gene but I wil keep it in mind, why the request?” “I'l tel you why Tim, I recently tasted some brew that these two dodo's made and you almost couldn't drink the stuff, it was terrible.”

“Terrible,” Austin repeated. “Then I made them a carboy full of good beer and Byron said it was the best beer he had ever tasted. I know how to make beer and they don't. Since this is the only brewery on Mars don't you think it would be in the beer drinking publics best interest to have good beer?” “I agree but let me think, I know we don't have a park ranger in the hour glass yet and there are valuable natural beauty assets there that need to be protected. We already have rangers on duty in paradise and The Company cavern to protect the fish, how would you like to be the ranger at the Hour Glass, Gene?” “Fantastic, I knew I could count on you Tim.” So it was that Hour glass brewery got a brew meister and the folks on Mars got some really good beer. Beer containers were a problem Austin and Byron hadn't thought of before ordering all their other stuff, but Gene had the answer, I will just put a large covered vat in the square and the customers can bring their own containers. The kitchens have hundreds of plastic jugs that stuff they use comes in and they have just been storing the empties in the back of one of the caverns in hopes they would be of use some day. Wel we can retrieve a couple thousand of those jugs, wash them and give them to people that don't have containers when they buy beer from our vat. Three weeks later they had the vat set up and Byron was selling beer every evening from 1700 to 1900. Gene turned out to be not a very good ranger but he was a heck of a brewer. Most people swore that Hour Glass brewery on Mars made the best beer they had ever tasted. Byron and Austin made so much money that they bought out Genes contract with The Company and made him a partner. In the meantime Gene, who was actual y a pretty sharp guy had been hitting the Internet-and boning up on wine making. After several hundred hours of study he thought he was ready. He got out the ingredients and the equipment and proceed to make a carboy of wine. It was a burgundy and it was pretty good so after Austin and Byron approved he started making vats of it. He then tried a Chablis which was also pretty good and Gene figured considering the competition it was good enough. Within six months they were also selling table wine in the square, no one seemed to rave about the wine like they did the beer but they bought it anyway.

Also among the items that were brought in on Mars Runner were an assortment of salt water fish and enough mixture to convert ten mil ion gallons of fresh water to salt water. Helen asked,”What do you need that stuff for, we have plenty of salt in the caverns, there are big deposits of it. Grace told Helen

“There is a lot more than just salt in this mixture, Helen this is the residue that results from the dehydration of ocean water. There are hundreds of nutrients in this mixture that salt water fish require. For the next month Grace and Helen and three crews were busy setting up the Ocean and introducing the salt water fish.

CHAPTER - December 31, 2108: Happy new year 2109

January 7, 2109 : Tunneling starts to reach the long low 6th cavern nine hundred feet away. This was a new experience for the dril ers. So far the caverns had been close enough to being on the same level but this dig was at a six percent down grade the whole way. It was difficult to keep loose material from getting in the way. A front end loader was constantly removing the loose material. After a while they got the knack of it and started making pretty good progress. At one hundred feet in they they ran into solid quartz. They summoned Harold Dixon, the mine manager “what do you recommend we do about this Harold?” “This is a good thing and a bad thing, I would like to take some samples for assay and I would like for you to tunnel to get a crawl space to the other side. Also get the scientists to get you some pictures of what this looks like, I need to know the size and contents of this formation. Is there another route you could take to stil get to Utopia?” “There is a longer way, yes, Lets get Tim and Carter and see if they have any idea's.” “A few minutes later Tim showed up with Hal Johnson, and all the charts of known caverns in the area. If you went to the side of the hourglass away from the winery and changed direction and dug off to the right of the hour glass you would only have a short dig 150 feet to a very large cavern that we can tell little about but we know that it is almost 68 square miles in size and we really didn't want to have to pressurize a hole that big at this time. Now, however since we have additional atmosphere apparatus and have that big generator that we were thinking of using in Utopia we could use it in that big cavern, assuming there is water and a hot spot somewhere in there. If not we could lay down an air tight tunnel which would be twelve miles long and then tunnel another two hundred fifty feet and we come out in this little arm of Utopia.” Jonson mumbled as he ran his finger over the chart. Harold said “I would like to see you guys go that route and leave this quartz to us hard rock guys, there is no way to tell, of course but I smell gold there.” as he pointed to the quartz barrier. “Why don't you guys knock off for the rest of the day and I wil have new marching orders for you in the morning. Tim and Hal went back to the Government cavern and connected with Paul and Carter. Johnson explained the plan change to them and they agreed. “If Harold wants that quartz lets give it to him and take on the little giant instead. I always kinda wanted to go that way in the first place. It was just the challenge that cavern poses to our environmental facilities that sent us on the route we were taking anyway.

January 20, 2109 The tunnelers started their dig again, this time to the little giant. They ran in to lots of rocks but stil managed to make pretty good headway. The rocks were al being sent back for the scientists to study and identify. These guys didn't know much about rocks but generally the harder they are the more valuable they are, and these were very hard rocks, a hammer wouldn't break one or cleave it.

CHAPTER – Breakthrough To the Little Giant cavern

February 14, 2109 The tunnel crew started work that morning in their Mars suits with the airlock closed behind them. At 1042 one of the men hit the wall with his pick and it went right on through. They finished opening up the hole and only had to step down one foot to be standing in the Little Giant. This was by far and away the most beautiful site they had ever seen on Mars. “Who wants to reach Utopia, one of the men said, I think we have found it.” This cavern was almost 20 miles long and almost 15 miles wide, 20 in places. The floor of the cavern was covered with scrub brush like you would see in Arizona, There were majestic cacti growing and in bloom with flowers, some of the plants resembled giant saguaros some prickly pear and many other nameless varieties. “With plants here the air must be breathable” “I already took a reading it might be breathable but it is stil very high in CO2. Once this cavern is sealed our smal est atmosphere apparatus would keep it breathable. If it weren't for the size of this place I would say just open the airlock and let it equalize. The five hundred foot high sealing gave off a soft phosphorescent glow like you would see on Earth just before dark. They could see a small mountain chain in the distance. They were low but rather than being shaped like hil s they had peaks like real mountains. That night they sent one hundred guys in Mars suits inside the cavern shining their lights up at the ceiling and had another hundred guys in Mars suits looking for the light beams to break through. Most of the cavern was covered by a mountain on the Martian surface. The guys on the surface only found two small fissures and they fil ed them right then and there with balloons dropped down ten feet into the fissure and then inflated. They marked the locations then went back to the Government cavern. Tim, Paul and Carter visited the cavern within the hour of it being opened. “We just have to call this one Arizona,” Tim said. They all agreed but it didn't matter, the tunneling crew called it that the moment they saw it. The next morning with the temporary air seals in place from the night before they started their pressurization test that took almost all day. When it finally passed and was declared air tight they just opened the air lock and let the atmosphere in their whole system equalize. The heat also equalized and the atmosphere machines made short work of the little rise in CO2. The cavern was first opened to the scientists. The more they looked the more they found, Including several fire pits and many petroglyph's. People had once lived in this place before the CO2 final y got them. Several photographers walked around the walls taking stil pictures and video's, the photographers then criss crossed the entire floor of the cavern and photographed everything, that took five photographers a week. But now they had it for posterity. Arizona turned out to be 368 square miles in size not 68 as they had thought. Somehow the photos they had taken twelveyears earlier on a flyby had failed to accurately catch the whole cavern

Arizona was the only thing people could talk about. There was a small creek feeding into a large almost dry lake bed. Samples had been taken of the water and of the lake bed . That was not a problem, they already had more water than they could use. Al they had to do was to pipe it in. February 20, 2109: Tunneling starts to reach Utopia two hundred fifty feet away.

March 5, 2109 Mars Supply One docked and unloaded four hundred more pallets of merchandise for Super Store. This time they brought 20 pal ets of fishing gear. So many residents had complained to Charlie Rasmussen about the lack of fishing gear and the presence of fish on Mars that he thought he would go overboard and over order on fishing gear.

With each ship that docked there were more and more of the Government employees that were finishing their contracts and were eligible to return to Earth, fewer and fewer of them did, however. Most stayed on as independent citizens of Mars. Mars.com had even gone to posting help wanted ads and people were posting job wanted ads but that was really unnecessary because you could cover all the business on Mars in a couple hours and they were all hiring. The pattern of remaining on Mars taking a job then researching some kind of business you wanted to go into then ordering your business equipment from Earth then opening for business soon developed. Mars now had an insurance office which wasn't doing too well a one man attorney firm that had no clients but they did have a sign on the door to call the attorney if you wanted to talk to him.