A Colony on Mars (17 page)

8.We have never had a crime committed on Mars and it is a good thing because we have no police on Mars.

9.So far we have a private ownership bank chartered by two citizens of Mars who were United States Civil Service Employees who finished their employment contracts with the government. They have been in operation for several months and are affiliated with City Bank in the United States. We would not want to see any other banks on Mars until the population exceeds 30,000. 10.Burger Boy's has opened a restaurant outlet on Mars and Super Store should be open within a matter of Days with a temporary store pending the development of Utopia where they have a franchise to open one store for every 40,000 population. Al other business fields are wide open. These things also you need to take into consideration when you are negotiating with our people. Don't be fooled by congress, Mars Colony, Inc. has the hammer and they are the ones that wil ultimately call the shots. You would probably save yourselves a lot of red tape if you negotiated directly with Mars Colony, Inc. and eliminated the middleman. Congress wil probably legislate in favor of any deal you strike on future development, land use, business, etc. Congress will be more interested in some of the social issues we discussed.”

“Mr. President, do you think we could”. “Hold it right there, this is not a negotiation, I just gave you some pointers, save your negotiating for the big shots. Sorry but I have another appointment waiting. I wish you all the best of luck.”

They negotiated for almost a year and ended up with a deal that closely resembled the deal that the President had outlined when they talked to him in his office.

They also acknowledged that there was a distinct possibility that if the Mars colony applied for statehood at some future date, when they were ready the application would probably be favorably received and that if that happened al the residents of Mars would either be admitted as Citizens of the United States or would be granted Green Card, resident worker status. They didn't care much for that clause and it had never occurred to them that what the United States had planned for Mars was the eventual doubling of the size of the Continental United States and adding as many as three hundred mil ion new citizens. Needless to say the UK consortium eventual y lost interest in the deal.

“Why give those blokes our best and brightest, the Prime Minister Said.”

Mars Colony, Inc. did start placing recruitment ads on the internet soliciting applicants from those four countries.

CHAPTER – Big Lake and the Utility Cavern

June 6, 2108 : The Tunnel Crew finally broke through to the second new cavern. It was huge. It was not as spectacular as Paradise but it was larger than all their previous caverns combined. Almost thirty square miles. It was two caverns actually. left as they broke through then a narrow opening, The tunneling crew had only to don their Mars suits for the last four hours before breakthrough. The cavern had one nice feature, the floor was almost flat. They could tell from the light filtering in that it as wel was a beautiful cavern The wal s almost had a glow to them, they kind of glistened when a light was shined on them. A stream, almost a river entered at one side then pooled into a lake that was quite large near the center of the larger part of the cavern, probably about five square miles before turning once again into a stream and flowing out the other side of the cavern. This cavern was slightly higher in elevation at floor level than Paradise had been. Tim and Carter were both on hand for the breakthrough, accompanied by a lighting crew who instal ed temporary lights in both the large and the small part of the cavern.

The large part had a very high ceiling and very few fissures to the surface so they knew they were under a mountain. Had the ceiling been this high on flat land it would only have been a pit. The scientists speculated that this large cavern had been formed by a large meteor striking the surface maybe a bil ion years in the past. Their guess was that the meteor had also formed the lake that was very deep and fil ed with crystal blue water. Most of the scientists from the Government cavern were pouring into the cavern taking soil samples and water samples for testing. It was obvious that this cavern had been formed differently than the others they had come across. Tim and Carter agreed that this would be the most comfortable cavern they had found and this is where they should probably be working out of once they had tamed it. Tim and Carter briefly discussed running an enclosed tunnel through this monster cavern but withheld making any decision until they knew more. They didn't notice, since they were wearing Mars suits but the temperature had risen to 75 degrees in the small side and 72 in the large side. The scientists discovered that right away though. “My guess is that you are going to find beautiful hot spots in the small side.” “Yeah, we have enough equipment to tame this cavern. There is water, maybe we should tame it, we wil know more in a couple days after we have had a chance explore the small side. We have been so enthralled with the big side that we have paid little attention to the small side.”

Carter and Paul sent a joint report to Earth telling them what they had found. They were developing quite a list of things they needed to develop these new caverns. It would take several days just to explore the new caverns. The list grew longer and now Included a request for more bureaucrats. The shortage of clerical help is becoming critical. We need more clerks everywhere on the facility and once we get our legal system in place we wil need Judges, and all the other people that are needed to run the court system. We wil need at least one prosecuting attorney and one public defender and a lot more more clerks. In the public records department we have only one part time clerk now, we need a ful time staff. We need at least three police officers, we need a dispatcher, We need everything that we would have to have to hold an election. Maybe on the next ship we could skip the construction workers and send the people we need to convert this work camp into a small city. They did find several hot spots in the newly opened smal side of the new cavern. There was a warm stream running across the cavern. It was obvious that this would be the place to house their utilities so Tim put crews to work installing the new generator, and the atmosphere making equipment. The Government atmosphere control people had activated one of the backup atmosphere control units when they opened Paradise. They would now need to activate the remaining two. There were six more units scheduled for delivery in September. Tim requested that the two remaining back up atmosphere systems be instal ed in the Utility cavern so they could go ahead and pressurize the Big Lake cavern.

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.