Donald of Mars Episode 6-10

A story on building a new colony on Mars and what it will take to live there

Chapter 6 Home

“You’re not planning to work for them, are you?” Vikrant said with alarm, stepping off his treadmill.

“What? No. They came up in conversation. If my project requires a trip outside, should I go myself, or call a gopher?”

“Complicated question. Gofers of Mars charge roughly twice what you could rent a suit for per hour. In most cases, they can reach your sight and have the problem fixed before you can even get suited up and outside. But one time in five they can’t, and you have to go, anyway.”

“What about the ethics of it?”

He sat his ever-present tablet on the desk. “The radiation risk is overstated. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a potential problem, just that there are a lot of misconceptions about them. The risk due to accidents and bad maintenance is far higher. Every bit of the equipment Gofer uses is second hand repaired stuff they bought off people heading home. Most people are at Gofers because they didn’t pay attention to details. Drugs are rampant there. Not a great combination of factors, and some say paying them is just making the problem worse.”

“Drug use is a problem everywhere on Mars. The Earth governments need to crack down on it.”

Had drug use played a part in William’s health problems? Quinten’s use of homemade rice wine on the weekends played a part in his.

“No, they don’t. Drug abuse is bad. A war on drugs is worse and does more damage. Our drug use on Mars is no worse than any earth side city and better than many, but we have a fraction of their violence. The companies and Earth need to just keep ignoring it. The majority of drug users go home after a tour, anyway. We don’t need to bring in that level of violence by restarting the Drug War here.”

Vikrant took a deep breath. “But whether to use Gofer, I would guess, would depend on the situation. If you know it is a minor problem, call them and get it fixed fast. There are always some outside needing the work and money. But check with your operators first. There are a few that have strong opinions on the subject.”

“I have my brick invoice.”

He smiled. “It already came through and updated our files. You will get final notification when it gets updated back on earth.”

Donald went home.

His phone went off with a high priority notification as he opened his door. He stopped what he was doing, pulled it from his pocket and checked it.

This is a security notification from Sing Housing Corporation.

Your apartment door just opened, but we have you listed as at work. Is this you? If we do not receive a reply in 180 seconds, a security guard will check it out for you.

Someone else using his work computer already? Donald smiled and sent, It’s me. Remove my name from that device. I no longer work for that company and use that device.

Sing did a much better job than most at keeping their places clean and safe.

Donald liked his small place Sing rented him with its tall ceiling, but looked forward to having more than twenty square meters of floor space, five of them taking up by the bathroom, closets and cabinets. He had hated it on moving in, but that changed as the plants in the room grew. Having one wall entirely covered in ivy made it feel safer and less claustrophobic. Last month, for the first time, they had to come in and trim the tops branches of the orange tree. It had grown to touch the light panels on the ceiling five meters up. Those tall ceilings and having to share his living space with plants and insects had taken getting used to. But beyond being of a psychological benefit, the plants and insect served a vital role, including detection. If they were not thriving, then the environment would make a person sick too, was the general rule of thumb.

Ceiling five to ten meters high took some getting used to, but they were a standard feature on all buildings being built on Mars. The equations varied slightly, but four cubic meters of living volume for every square meter of living space was coming out to be the minimum, with ten cubic meters being recommended. Because of both high ceiling and insect, canopy beds with insect nets were popular. Like most apartments here, his contained no kitchen, refrigerator or food storage. Such increased the likely hood of unwanted insect population competing with your wanted insect populations unless done right. In the place he was building he was using the kitchen-dining room experts had designed, to minimize that effect.

Even though it was earlier than usual, he checked the water quality on the fish. It wasn’t something you needed to do daily unless you ran your tank at or near maximum capacity. With six fish approaching two kilos each, his was two kilos over what Sing designed this small system to handle.

He filled the test-tube and dropped three drops of testing fluid in.

Damn, too much pink.

 No help for it. One fish had to go. He had tried and failed not to turn them into pets. Later, he would take the largest one to Fong’s.

He checked his strawberries. Adding those sixteen strawberry plants ate up enough nutrients to let him run the system with as much fish as he had. He smiled. Two more days, and he could pick eight of them to go with his breakfast. When he pulled that fish out, he would need to keep an eye on these plants. There might not be sufficient nutrients after the system feeds the ivy, tree and other things in the apartment, giving it its ecological balance.

“Luna, any afternoon labor contracts open?”

His room screen came to life and the speaker spoke. “There are three people looking for a few hours labor. All household tasks. I listed them with the highest offer on top.”

The top two were both too dirty for the offered amount and would take longer than he had. The third would just cover his dinner.

“Take the third offer.”

A moment later, his phone beeped, asking him to confirm he was coming.

Chapter 7 Odd Job

Donald stepped into the Yellow Rose tunnel, heading for the job in side-tunnel eighteen. Yellow Rose, while bigger than the original inflated tunnels, was smaller than what they build main tunnels now. Like the main tunnels, the side tunnels were also smaller than those currently being built. Time and experience exposed the problems with building the tunnels this small. They required a lot more power per cubic meter of air to keep them fresh and healthy, for one. The smaller side tunnels were even worse. They had to pull the plants out of those because they obstructed circulation too much and they could not get enough CO2 to their leaves to thrive.

The brick domes in this section were little better than the brick tunnels, too small to function correctly. They were two instead of three floors and those floors were barely three-point-five-meters tall. That resulted in them requiring twice the power to run per person than the larger one.

At Yellow Rose, side-tunnel eighteen, dome fourteen, with YRST18D14 print on its closed door, he used his phone to notify those inside he was there. He missed doorbells, but hadn’t seen a single one on Mars since he arrived. Everyone used phones for that.

“I’m here.”

No video accompanied the female voice response of, “Be right there.”

“Hi, hansom.” Said the young heavyset woman in a skimpy robe, who opened the door.

Donald tried to place where he had seen her before. Of course, he had seen nearly everyone on Mars before.

Then the smell hit him. That stench said that the environmental system was grossly out of balance, at a guess, it was to a near toxic level.

“You said you needed a handily man for a few hours maintenance on the Aquaponic System?”

“Yes, if we don’t get it fixed, they are going to charge Candy and I to replace it.”

That clicked it. Candy and Honey had been on his ship with him. “Don’t want that coming out of your bonus when you get back.”

She laughed at that. “Some bonus. We borrowed that and more living here. No, we are just trying to cut out how bad our debt will be when we get home. I can’t believe how much it cost to live here and how stingy people are with their money.”

Donald kept his face blank. The two Danish porn stars had bragged about the ten million euro bonus they would receive on returning the entire trip out, much to the irritation of their fellow passengers. Honey hadn’t impressed him back then and adding an additional 20 kilos was much less attractive now. She stepped back from the door for him to enter.

One foot past that double door and he was tempted to remember errands he had to do elsewhere. Clutter was everywhere and crickets infested the place.

“I can already tell you, the time you have me scheduled for isn’t going to get this fixed.”

She gave him a wink and smile; then parted her robe, showing nothing under it. “Would you be interested in barter for more time?”

“No.”

Donald had nothing against sexworkers or paying them and had done so three times since getting to Mars, but Honey put him off.

A laugh came from a naked woman seated in the only clean area around he had overlooked. “Told you. The only ones that are going to come here and do this are ones desperate for money. Don’t mind Honey, but barter doesn’t just mean sex though that is on the table. We are leaving. Most of this is for sale. If you see something you want that we won’t be needing in the next month, make an offer for it in man hours instead of euro or dollars.”

“That might be a possibility, then.”

She stood up. “I’ll show you down to the environmental room. Honey, you get back to setting the cameras for our next scene, according to the director’s instruction.”

Donald could see Candy had added less than half the weight Honey had in her two years here. He let his curiosity get the better of him. “Where do you work out?”

“I am a senior karate instructor at Wan Dojo, three days a week. It slowed down me getting fat but didn’t prevent it. I can’t put in more time there and meet our schedule.”

In the basement, only two of the four fish tanks were in operation. They had set a makeshift green bed and green screen with more video cameras set up over the other two.  

“If you want those up and running, it is going to take far more time than you are paying for.”

“No, not those. We still have nine more scenes that have to be shot on that set. Just fix the other two. We have been getting the caution light for a week now, but no red warnings. We had to cancel the contractor we had maintaining it, six months ago over a dispute over payment.”

“Just looking at those tanks from here, I see too many fish. That is high water flow density, and you are running standard flow set up.”

“The contractor put all of them in there when he closed down the other two so we could set up that shoot. He said they would be fine.”

“Maybe as a temporary thing that might be ok but not long term. How long have they been shut down?”

“Nine months.”

Once again, Donald was impressed with the designers and the redundancy built in. The system had been put out of balance nine months ago and the people maintaining it didn’t understand it well, yet the air was still breathable. It was undoubtedly gulping down power needlessly, but still getting the job done. However you wanted to cut it, that was impressive. But it was breaking down now and would collapse.

“You have some serious problems here. It is amazing it is still working at all or that you can live here. Just for a start, you need to cut down those fish to half that number and probably toss out the first plants in line in your aquaponics tubes. Those roots will be filthy and clogging the rest of the system.” He thought for a time. “Tell you what. You pay me what was stated for today, and I will pull out the catfish that need to go, you weight them, and I take them. Tomorrow, I come back and work for one half an hour per kilo of catfish.”

“What do we put in the other tanks when we finish with those shoots?”

“Start them fresh with fingerings.”

Honey yelled down, “Candy, quit flirting, and get up here! Let’s get this scene shot.”

“It’s a deal. But you do the weighing and tell me. I have to get back to work. Please stay downstairs until we give you the all-clear. It is frustrating as hell to have the scene interrupted and have to reshoot them.” She bounded up the steps, not giving him the chance to answer. Much of the work would require his going upstairs because these tanks fed those plants first, then the ones downstairs.

Chapter 8 Aquaponic Maintenance

Donald started breaking down the swirl filter. It was much less a mess than he expected and explained part of why the system hadn’t collapsed. He checked the fish feeders, then frowned. Someone had set them to their second lowest setting. At that starvation setting, it was a wonder those fish hadn’t eaten each other.

He gave the fish a better look, then frowned. Only two of them, the biggest in each tank, could be sold to eateries. Those two got most of the food. The rest were smaller and bony. His offer to come back had been a mistake. To take these, he needed to empty his home tanks so he could fatten them.

That wasn’t all to the bad. His own fish were too big, past their fast growth size, where most of what he fed them became body mass. He had just been putting that off because of his attachment to them.

;.He went back to pulling the filter apart and putting all that crap into a bucket. He didn’t know who they had buying it, but someone would be. A problem the tunnel companies had in getting the tunnel ecologies up and running right was being outbid for aquaponics waste.

Moaning coming down the stairs interrupted his thought. They were obviously doing a sex scene.

Donald cocked his head and listened. At a guess, that was Candy, but he really couldn’t tell. Solo or with Honey? It tempted him to peek and find out, but remembered her warning not to come up. He shoved that thought aside and continued cleaning out the first of the two swirl filters. Concentrating on fish shit helped him ignore the moans a little.

“How is it going?” came from behind him, startling him.

He looked up.

Candy stood behind him, still stark naked. Why couldn’t she wear something?

He got himself back on topic. “I need to check where these feed lines upstairs once I restart these pumps.”

She winked and grinned at him. “I have a thirty-minute break while Honey resets the cameras.” Then she sighed. “It’s the same sex scene and we have to shoot it six times from six different angles. Come on up and check the upstairs parts.”

He stood up, flipped on the pumps, and the water flowed once more. He turned it to its lowest setting so he could work on the tubes with less mess. Curious, he asked, “They pay you for each shoot?”

She grinned. “Absolutely. Learned that lesson my first year shooting porn. They pay for every minute we shoot, whether or not they use it. They also are paying for set up for each time we shoot plus studio cost. It’s not cheap. These are not cheap mindless porns.” Turning about with a bit of a flounce, she started up the stairs.

Why was she flirting with him? Was it to convince him to accept sex for work done? It wasn’t going to happen. Stuff he needed or could sell was one thing. But if he wasn’t getting at least that, he needed other paying work.

Even if these two were better than average looking for Mars.

Honey was resetting a camera, no longer wearing her robe. Had she been the one in the scene, or both of them? He forced his attention to the task at hand and moved to their main ivy wall.

“I have never seen an ivy wall this bug eaten. At a guess, you don’t have enough spiders, praying mantis or geckoes. When is the last time you added any and which species?”

“Never. there were some in here when we moved in, but we never added any.”

Well, that explained the wall. Unless you were lucky and had a perfect balance, all three had to be replaced regularly from breeders. “Ok, you need to fix that before this system collapses any further.”

She seemed puzzled. “I thought the crickets ate each other.”

He sighed, “They do, but not to a large degree when other foods are available.” He pointed to the leaves.

She shivered. “I hate spiders and praying mantis, and I don’t want gecko shit everywhere.”

“You have too many crickets. Your system will not recover until you get them under control. You can get simi adult mantis and juvenile geckos from several suppliers moderately cheap. Spider egg sacks are less common, and take some expertise to set up in your place to hatch, so will cost you more. Your system is already in the yellow and heading to red, so you need this now.”

“Honey and I will discuss it.”

Honey came over. “You always talk these things to death. He’s right. Get them. We are done catering to your spider phobia.” She sighed. “We’re done shooting for today. To get the exact angle they require means I have to 3D print a bracket.” She held up a plastic bracket. “The one we were using just broke.”

It was then he realized she had put on her robe again. She pulled another from off her shoulder and handed it to Candy. Was being naked for when they were working?

“Do you have special plans after you finish here?” Honey asked him, as Candy slipped on the robe.

“Why do you ask?”

“We are going to Danny’s later on. We will cover half of your dinner if you come with us, then help us get those geckoes and mantis after.”

“Ok mantis and geckos, but no spiders,” said Candy.

“We’ll discuss spiders later,” responded Honey.

“I did have plans, but can change them.” He would try to explain that with the cricket reduced by the mantis and geckoes, midgets and other thing would become a problem if there were no small spider eating them.

Chapter 9 A Shower

As Donald wrapped up trimming roots in an over run section of aquaponics tubes to improve circulation, Candy came down the steps. The tasteful, if short, green halter dress drew his attention moreso than when she had come down them nude.

“If you want to clean up, shower free. We’ve got some men’s clothes that you can borrow. It’s part of the wardrobe we keep on hand, so make sure you return them clean.”

Did she always make such a production of smile?

“Are they part of what you have up for barter?”

“Yes, and no. They are up for barter, but we don’t have to sell those so much. The three people the company is sending up to take over are going to buy most of those, as well as all the video gear and other equipment, such as props and wardrobe that doesn’t already belong to the company. Working with those three on a couple of projects in the three-week overlap will be the last movies we shoot on Mars.”

“Doesn’t the company own that stuff already?”

“Only about a third of it. The set up they had for us would not give the quality needed. That is where about half that bonus money went. Honey and I expect to make it back over time on the percentage we are getting on everything we do. Because of that equipment, we got more quality work done quickly, so will with luck make it back in royalties. Because of that and the cost of living here, not only is there going to be no bonus, but we are going home with debt.”

So, the two hadn’t blown through their money as he first thought. They had invested it. “Where did you find video equipment on Mars?”

“It was secondhand. Three different film crews were here, who left the last window. One had cameras better than anything we brought. When we contacted our company about buying them, they told us not unless we were willing to use our bonus for that. Honey convinced me that the quality of our work would be enough better that we would make that money back, so we bought them.”

The two-point-two-year stay on Mars was resulting in more recent colonist finding more and more used equipment available. Those who took advantage of it could do well. It was something he would need to keep in mind. He wanted to hear more about it.

“Then I will take you up on both the shower, and the change of clothes. Since I am coming back tomorrow, I’ll pull the fish out then. They are underweight so I am only going to sell two. I need to make room in my tank for the others.”

“Will you be able to finish tomorrow?”

“Hell no. You have too much wrong. But I can get the worst of it done and your system won’t be on the edge of collapse. It would take a week just to find all the clogs and trim those roots.”

From up the stairs Honey said, “I’ll see if I can schedule some time tomorrow while you’re here. You can teach me how to clean those out.” She came to the stairs and looked down them at Candy. “To do that means we shoot that scene as soon as we get back. The bracket will be done by then.”

Candy sighed and replied, “Fine, as soon as we get back from dinner.”

The shower wasn’t the tiny thing he was used to or where it was supposed to be. They had removed the entire left side bedroom, then moved and expanded the bathroom into a bathroom slash studio. It had no shower doors. The shower was quite impressive. Looking it over, he could see it was three different, one-hundred-liter recirculating shower systems merged in to one. There were even three different shower controls in the shower: right, center, and left. Were there three separate controls, so they had better management of water flow over what they were shooting? He flipped on all three and began undressing. The large roomy shower was an unlooked-for luxury.  

A thought crossed his mind standing there nude. Would one or both girls try to enter it with him? A smile crossed his face. He wouldn’t refuse company, but wasn’t going to invite it, either. The camera pointing at the shower triggered a different thought and his smile became a laugh. How many people would come to Mars thinking that big showers were common because of watching them? He made sure that camera was powered off.

After being sure that the uptake in that drain could pull that much water out and not start backing up, he stepped in. Their drain pumps were doing better than most showers he had used on Mars. Unless pumped, water flowed slow enough that many showers put out water faster than it would drain, limiting how long you could use them before they overflowed. Brock’s had that problem. Then again, it made sense that a video company would go the extra money to make sure it didn’t happen to theirs. It would be a pain to wait for it to drain, to reshoot a scene or to have to end shooting because of water buildup. All three systems also showed that the water was being filtered and ozonated and returned to the three tanks. It was one sweet system, far better than the gym he used.

He stepped in. The water was perfect. It was the best shower he had had since coming to Mars.

Candy entered after he turned it off, but not to join him. She had a huge towel and a change of clothing, an orange silk shirt and green silk pants.

“I am about to phone in our order, today’s specials, chicken Alfredo, catfish with broccoli rice au gratin.”

 “I eat low carb,” he said, taking the towel.

“Chicken Caesar salad then? That is always on the menu, if not on special.”

“That would be fine.”

She sat the clothes down and left.

Finding a large mirror and makeup table to one side, he looked himself over. They were nice clothes and fit his frame fine, but not to his taste.

Chapter 10 Danny’s

Honey said, setting her tablet in front of him, “I found three dealers that have praying-mantis for sale. Do you recommend one?” Then she took another bite of her Alfredo.

After putting down his own fork, he picked it up. “I don’t recognize any of these names. I usually deal with someone named Lafayette. But I have to put down my name on a waiting list for what he breeds. That takes a few weeks sometimes. Not a good option for you. Just take the cheapest one. In all likelihood those are not breeders selling, but people who are either, thinning theirs out, or people that bought eggs from breeders to raise and sell. I do know someone that likely has geckoes.” It didn’t take him long to find the name on his phone and forward it to her tablet. He wondered just how someone could live two years on Mars and not understand how important maintaining the ecology in their home was or the overall market for maintaining it.

He picked back up his fork and changed the subject. “If your replacements are buying your stuff from you? Why are you bartering it away?”

“The second-hand shops here will only give us sixty percent of import value. Our replacements are only offering sixty-five and only on the props, wardrobe and video equipment. If the bartered services are higher in value than that, it is worth it.”

He didn’t bother informing them of the flaw in that reasoning. Because of bartering, they were purchasing more services than they otherwise would have. That means they would get less money on return. He had seen things like that before. Spending is spending. When you spend, you have less. He got back to the subject of their replacements. “But they are going to a new place, not taking over the lease on that one?”

“Yes, our company is done leasing buildings here. They built two attached three-story domes. One is the studio office. The second is living space for all three. Those domes are already up and running through the tunnel to them isn’t yet pressurized so neither of us has been to them. The company is also sending all-new video equipment. Our equipment will be more for backup.”

“You might be able to save a bit of money then. If that system is up and running, someone goes there daily. It may be overstocked with both geckos and praying-mantis. That all depends on when it was set up and who did it.”

Candy said, “I don’t know who did it. Why would it be overstocked?”

“You add those last after the system has a lot of prey for them. But they grow fast and soon there isn’t enough food for all of them, so they start hunting each other. Go ahead and put off buying them a day or two. Call your company and get the name. Then call them and find out if a few of each can be harvested from there for your place. They might even be able to offer you a better deal on them for making up the difference. They would certainly be able to tell you exactly how many you need of each better than I.”

“Then I’ll call and let you know what they said tomorrow,” Honey said. “You will be by at the same time and show me what needs to be done?”

“Same time is fine,” he told her.

His phone, ringing with the Doctor Who theme, interrupted them, and he picked it back up off the table next to her tablet.

“Donald. Mohammad here.”

“Hi Mohammad. What’s up?”

“My sister told me about the offer she made you. I have agreed with some modifications that I think you will like, including you getting a percentage in the class you teach. Come by tomorrow morning and we’ll talk.”

“Sounds great.”

“See you in the morning, then.”

The phone went dead, and Donald put it away.

“You going to teach something?” asked Honey.

“Tia chi, at a Brock’s gym. It will help me cover the cost of my gym access now that it isn’t part of my company’s access.”

“You can’t get the needed workout just doing Tia Chi. You should teach a harder form like I do,” Candy put in.

“Neither do the harder forms. For that you need either gym equipment or running the tunnel for kilometers every day. Tia Chi is fine, and done correctly, results in a better muscle tone and limberness than the harder forms, one closer to what yoga gives you. That makes it a better balance with the weight training in most gyms.”

She grunted, and Donald couldn’t tell if it was agreement or disagreement.

* * *

Mindful of what the girls said about wanting the clothes back clean, he changed as soon as he got home, then took those and a few others down to the laundry room. Putting those in triggered a thought, and he took out his phone and added a cheap washing-machine to his list of equipment he wanted to get with that loan as soon as the washer started. With it still out, he called Fong’s.

“Fong’s eatery. Finest food on Mars. What can we do for you?”

“This is Donald. I have six two-kilo tilapia. Can I sell them to you for credit against meals?”

“Still live, and disease free?”

“Yes.”

“Then bring them by. It will cut what I am having delivered for tomorrow in half.”

He started walking back to his room, phone still in hand. “They’re still in my tank. You want them tonight or in the morning?”

“Morning would be better.”

“Ok, seen you then.”

Having seen the mess that those girls had let their environmental system get in, Donald began a search of his own for predators.

Spiders were easy to find. After an hour, he gave up not finding either mantis or geckoes and went to get his laundry. He knew he had at least one lager gecko hiding somewhere. He was finding its poo from time to time.

*******

So what do you think of Donald of Mars so far? Do you have an interest in living in an underground city on Mars? Would you be able to keep up your exercise and life support maintenance?