A Mars Odyssey

by Michel Poulin

  ‘’Welcome on the H.S.S. STEPHEN HAWKING, sir! What may we do for you?’’

  ‘’I am Jiang Min, Commander of Ares Station. I would like to speak with your captain, if he is not too busy.’’

  ‘’Certainly, sir! Follow me, please.’’

  Leaving a crewmember in charge of the transit hall, the female officer led Min to one of the elevator cabins situated in one corner of the wide compartment. The two of them then rode up for some forty meters parallel to the centerline axis of the ship before their cabin stopped and its doors opened. The H.S.S. STEPHEN HAWKING was the first ship of a new class, with many more similar ships to follow, all using the tremendous power and efficiency of the new thermonuclear fusion rocket technology. Of generally ogival shape, with an overall length of 330 meters and a maximum width of 205 meters, the STEPHEN HAWKING was much more massive and voluminous than the 38 year-old H.S.S. FRIENDSHIP, which was still used to haul cargo and passengers between Earth and Mars. However, in contrast to the FRIENDSHIP, the STEPHEN HAWKING was much less dependent on the relative orbital positions of Earth and Mars, thanks to its powerful new engines, and could make the trip at the time of its choosing, thus greatly increasing the frequency of the trips between the two planets.

  Once out of the elevator cabin, the ship’s officer led Min to an airtight steel door and opened it, letting him enter what clearly appeared to be the bridge of the ship. No less than fifteen men and women were present and working on the bridge as Min was led to one graying woman sitting in a centrally-located command chair. The escorting officer then presented Min to the woman in the chair.

  ‘’Captain, this is Mister Jiang Min, Commander of the Ares Station. Mister Jiang, this is Captain Natalia Voronej, the master of the STEPHEN HAWKING.’’

  The tough-looking blonde in her fifties sitting in the chair smiled to Min and extended a hand for a shake.

  ‘’Happy to meet you, Mister Jiang. Your space terminal is certainly an impressive feat of space engineering.’’

  ‘’And your ship is a truly splendid one, Captain Voronej.’’ replied Min. ‘’I came to review with you what we are going to exchange in cargo and passengers. I believe that you have brought with you two fusion-powered planetary shuttles that are going to be assigned to my space terminal, along with their flight crews and maintenance teams.’’

  ‘’That is correct, Mister Jiang. On top of that, we brought 1,340 new immigrants, along with 6,580 metric tons of various cargo and supplies. Thanks to your space terminal, we will be able to depart for Earth as soon as all that is transferred on your station, instead of having to wait for shuttles to haul that down to Mars piece by piece. And what do you have for us in exchange, so that I don’t travel with empty holds?’’

  ‘’Oh, I have plenty of valuable stuff for you, Captain, along with 93 passengers, Martian citizens who want to take some vacation time on Earth.’’

  Min then took out of a pocket an electronic data pad and consulted it for a few seconds before speaking again.

  ‘’You will be loading up some 670 metric tons of Martian pink salt, 1,133 metric tons of molybdenum metal products, 5.6 metric tons of pure platinum, 3.8 metric tons of palladium metal, 2,080 kilos of iridium, 11.6 metric tons of dysprosium, 712 kilos of scandium and 961 kilos of thulium, plus 329 kilos of uncut peridot semi-precious gems. The quantities I quoted for the rare earth elements may seem negligible, but their value on the Earth’s metal commodities market total over 226 million dollars. Add to that the value of the platinum and molybdenum and you have a cargo of metals worth nearly half a billion dollars.’’

  ‘’Wow!’’ said Voronej, truly impressed. ‘’It thus seems that Mars is starting to pay its way in terms of economic balance, Mister Jiang.’’

  ‘’Right you are, Captain, and this is only the start. Up to now, Mars is proving to be a mother lode in terms of mineral deposits, with some of the deposits found to date being of metals that are rare on Earth or whose supply is nearly exhausted, like rare earth metals. And we have only explored and prospected a tiny fraction of Mars surface to date. The latest discovery dates back from only two weeks ago, when an incredibly rich vein of diamonds deposits was found inside one of the old lava tubes of Pavonis Mons, in the Tharsis Montes volcanic chain, near Olympus Mons. Exploitation of that vein is due to commence in about a month and it should become a major source of high quality diamonds, both for Mars and for Earth. I…’’

  A communications technician on duty on the bridge suddenly interrupted Min, looking at his captain with a shocked expression.

  ‘’I’m sorry to interrupt like this, Captain, but the Mars Internet is now broadcasting a planet-wide urgent announcement.’’

  ‘’Very well, Mister Dominguez. Put it on the main viewing screen.’’

  ‘’Yes, Captain!’’

  With Min also looking with some anxiety at the large viewing screen of the bridge, the technician quickly made the picture of a news presenter appear, with the overhead picture of some kind of crash site shown on split screen mode.

  ‘’…The flying rover was on its way to the Capri Chasma region, at the eastern end of the Valles Marineris, when it apparently suffered a catastrophic engine or flight control failure and crashed on the ground, killing all of its seven occupants. Rescue teams are now at the site of the crash and have confirmed that there are no survivors. We now know that the Chief Administrator of Mars, Denise Wattling, was at the commands of the rover when it crashed and is part of the casualties. For the benefit of the newer citizens of Mars, let us remind the viewers that Denise Wattling, now dead at the age of 77, was in command of the first ever Human team to set foot on Mars, some 37 years ago, and was also the commander of the first Human base on Mars.’’

  Tears filled Min’s eyes as he looked at the file picture of Denise Wattling being shown on the screen, wearing her space suit with its visor up and smiling to the camera. He had to search quickly for a chair and sat in it, crushed by infinite sorrow and crying shamelessly.

  CHAPTER 18 – STEPPING AWAY FROM ARMAGGEDON

  15 :11 (Washington Time)

  Monday, December 15, 2087

  The Oval Office, The White House

  Washington, D.C., USA

  President Charles Lewis reread twice a particular paragraph of the executive summary of the report he was holding in his hands, then looked up at his science advisor, Doctor Janet Russell.

  ‘’How solid is this data, Janet?’’

  ‘’Pretty solid, Mister President. It was collected by over thirty scientific stations worldwide and verified by our top climatologist experts. What this study says is that global temperatures have gone down for the second year in a row, and this after temperatures have been steadily rising non-stop for over ninety years. I will concede that these two decreases in temperature may sound insignificant to most people, being respectively 0.3 and 0.5 degrees Celsius, but our experts are convinced that this confirms one thing: we are finally winning the battle against global warming, thanks to our atmosphere CO2 scrubbers and our new thermonuclear power plants, which have allowed us to finally phase out our last fossil fuel power plants.’’

  Lewis sat back in his padded chair and let out a sigh of relief while closing his eyes for a second.

  ‘’Thank God! To be able to finally see an end to this calamity… How long do you expect that it will take before we could hope to see temperatures, as well as sea levels, return to the normal levels we were accustomed to at the start of this century?’’

  ‘’Uh, that is a pretty hard thing to guess, Mister President, especially concerning the sea levels, but it will certainly take many decades, maybe a century or more before we could return to 2000 levels. Now is definitely not the time to slack off our efforts, on the contrary. Our people should be made to clearly understand that before someone raises false hopes and tries to cut the budgets for our climate control efforts.’’

  ‘’You’re too true about that, Janet: we have no
shortages of politicians and industrialists who can’t see further than their noses…or their wallets. I will thus instruct my cabinet secretaries along those lines. Could you prepare a presentation based on this report, to be shown to the cabinet by Friday?’’

  ‘’Friday is quite a short deadline, Mister President, but I will do my best.’’

  ‘’Good! Another thing: I fully expect some of my secretaries to use this report to cut or even terminate all support for the Mars Home Project, under the excuse that it is now made redundant by our climate progress. What should I say to that?’’

  Janet Russell, a 53 year-old physicist, stiffened at once at that question and answered it in a resolute tone of voice.

  ‘’Tell them that it would be a most stupid decision, Mister President. After over forty years of herculean efforts, our colony on Mars is now on the path to self-sufficiency. However, it will still need many more decades of material and financial support before it becomes truly self-sufficient. In fact, I estimate that we will need to support our Mars colony for at least fifty more years. Yes, it is already able to welcome immigrants from Earth who were refugees from climate disasters and actually helped over 10,000 such refugees to resettle on Mars during the last few years, but there is still a lot left to be done.’’

  ‘’I see! Well, I suppose that I will need all of my legendary leadership and oratory skills for that Friday cabinet meeting and for the discussions and debates that will follow in Congress afterwards on this subject.’’

  09:50 (GMT)

  Friday, February 6, 2088

  Apartment # 1015, Rosewood Tower, Southern District

  Elysium City, Olympus Mons

  Mars

  ‘’Here you are, Mister Djinigwina: your new family residence, Apartment 1015. It has three bedrooms, a lounge, a dining room with kitchenette, a complete bathroom and a separate washroom, plus a large storage closet and a balcony.’’

  ‘’Uh, it is Djiningwinan, Mister Robertson, not Djinigwina.’’ Corrected politely the thin 37 year-old man with dark skin and curly blond hair, making the building superintendant smile apologetically to Bo.

  ‘’Sorry about that, mister. Just out of curiosity, where are you from on Earth? I never heard a family name like yours before.’’

  Bo nodded his head at that, understanding how the superintendant could be ignorant about that.

  ‘’Djiningwinan is a very old Australia Aboriginal name, sir. My ancestors arrived on the Australian continent some 60,000 years ago, coming from South-West Asia via a land bridge.’’

  ‘’Oh, I see!’’ said Nick Robertson, who then looked down at the three young children accompanying the newly arrived couple. ‘’Your children seem quite lively and good-spirited, Mister Djiningwinan.’’

  ‘’They certainly are, Mister Robertson. Let me present you my family: first, this is my wife, Merindah. Then, you have my ten year-old son Daku, my eight year-old daughter Bindi and, finally, my four year-old son Monti.’’

  ‘’And what kind of job will you have here on Mars, Mister Djiningwinan?’’

  ‘’Please, just call me ‘Bo’.’’ Replied the Aborigine, seeing that the superintendant had some real trouble pronouncing his name correctly.

  ‘’Only if you call me ‘Nick’.’’

  ‘’Deal! To answer you, I was offered a contract to work as a sheep shearer and herder for the sheep farm here. Until a couple of years ago, I was working as a sheep shearer at a sheep ranch in Southern Australia, but global temperature risings have transformed what had been rich grasslands into a parched desert. The sheep herds progressively died out and I finally decided to find another place to live when the ranch I worked for was forced to close for good some two years ago. Unfortunately, most of Australia was in no better shape and New Zealand, which had fared better than Australia, was already packed to over-capacity with refugees. My family had to live in a resettlement camp for two years before this opportunity presented itself to us.’’

  Robertson nodded his head slowly at that story, having heard many similar sad tales from other immigrants to Mars during the last couple of decades.

  ‘’Sadly, too many people have lived through the same kind of misfortunes that you had to go through, Bo. However, you now have a chance at a brand new life here on Mars. The lifestyle may be totally different from what you knew on Earth, but it has many good points to it. For one thing, you may find our society here to be a lot more egalitarian and fair than what is found on Earth. Also, due to the special living conditions on Mars, our community group spirit is much stronger than usual. Here, everybody helps everyone.’’

  ‘’That is definitely to my liking, Nick.’’ said Bo, meaning it. ‘’Uh, with the time we arrived by ship on Mars, I am afraid that we kind of missed breakfast. Is there a place where we could eat at this hour? And talking about the hour: what kind of clock and calendar system do you use on Mars? I must confess that I didn’t read too deeply in my immigration guide brochure.’’

  ‘’First off, about food: no problems! Our cafeteria is open from five in the morning to ten in the evening, while we have a small night counter where you can get ready-to-eat food all night. You also can either eat in the communal dining room of the building or take out portions of food selected by you, to bring up to your apartment and eat it there. Your kitchenette has the basic appliances to help in that, including a microwave oven, a refrigerator, a coffee machine, a toaster oven and a hot plate. I can guide you and your family to our cafeteria afterwards if you wish so.’’

  ‘’That would be truly appreciated, Nick. You are really kind.’’

  ‘’Just doing my job, Bo. Now, about our system of time and dates. In the first decades of this colony, we simply used the standard Earth calendar and Earth time, based on Greenwich Time. However, as our population grew and started adapting to life on Mars, it was felt that depending on a time out of synch with our new home planet didn’t feel right. So, in 2074, thirty Earth years after the first successful landing on Mars, a new system was adopted. However, the old Earth system was also kept and can be referred to at anytime, especially when dealing with ships’ arrivals and with Earth-Mars communications. Watches now produced on Mars actually show both time and dating systems on demand. Now, the main things for you to know is that the Mars day, called properly ‘sol’, is nearly the same length as one Earth day. In fact, one sol is 24 hours and 37 minutes long. Then, the Mars year is 687 Earth days long or, more properly, 669.79 sols long. The decision was taken to split the Mars year in 24 months, with 22 of those months counting 28 days each and two months counting 27 days, for a total of 669 sols. The small fraction left is added every two years. Thus, while 44 Earth years have passed since the start of Human presence on Mars, we are now in the Year 23 of the Martian calendar and today is the fifth day of Tharsis, the second month of the Martian calendar. But don’t worry about those kind of details, Bo: nobody will be offended if you continue using Earth time.’’

  ‘’Still, I certainly intend to learn this Martian time and date system, Nick: I want to live in harmony with this planet, the way I did in my old ancestral land.’’

  Robertson, his expression sober, gently patted his shoulder.

  ‘’I like your way of thinking, Bo. You and your family will make outstanding Martian citizens. Now, I will let you get out of your spacesuits and unpack your things, then will show you the facilities of this building. I strongly advise that you put on your ‘fat suits’ before leaving your apartment with me: one excited jump and you or one of your kids may end up all the way across the street…or in the middle of it and among the traffic. There is a weighing and filling station on the ground floor where you will be able to refill the integrated pouches of your fat suits with the appropriate weighing-down pads. I will now leave you and will return in half a hour, to bring you to the cafeteria.’’

  Robertson then left the apartment, with Bo and Merindah exchanging smiles.

  ‘’He seems to
be a truly nice man, I must say.’’ said Merindah, a short and thin, 31 year-old Aboriginal woman. Bo nodded his head at that.

  ‘’Indeed! If all the people here on Mars prove as nice as him, then leaving Earth will have been worth it. Well, let’s get out of these spacesuits. You remember in which suitcase we packed our fat suits?’’

  ‘’Yes I do, Bo!’’

  Some 32 minutes later, Nick Robertson showed up at the door of their apartment, as promised. Merindah was the one who answered his knocks and opened the door wide for him.

  ‘’We are ready to go down, Nick.’’

  Robertson nodded with satisfaction when he saw that the whole family was wearing their fat suits, technically called ‘Felt Weight Compensation Suits’, or FWCS.