Chapter 1B

Lon Fargo brought the electric truck to a halt near the southern end of greenhouse A-594. The truck was about ten meters long and featured a thirty-meter extendible hydraulic boom that was currently retracted. At the end of the boom was a portable airlock that allowed a person to pass from inside of the pressurized environment of a greenhouse building onto its roof by utilizing one of the access panels. One such panel was directly above the truck now.

Lon and his fellow agricultural complex maintenance technician, Brent Shimasaki, stepped out of the cab and onto the dusty macadam surface of the narrow access road. This particular greenhouse, one of more than ninety thousand in the Eden area, was two square kilometers in size. The ground inside of it, which had once been gently rolling hills and gullies, part of an ancient wetland water shed, had been bulldozed to a nearly perfect flatness when the complex was built forty-six years before. Golden stalks of wheat, less than a month from harvest, stretched from wall to wall in all directions, broken only by the geometric rows between them and by the access roads that divided the field into grid quadrants. The air was dry and warm, kept at the perfect growing temperature and humidity by the environmental simulation machines on the roof. It was one of these machines, which were powered by a fusion plant just outside the city, that the two men had come to repair.

They stepped lightly and carefully as they walked from the doors of the truck, which were emblazoned with a brand new Agricorp decal, to the rear where a storage cabinet was mounted. The greenhouses, though pressurized and warmed, did not have artificial gravity fields in place. Inside the city buildings or on the city streets, magnetic simulation fields were sent through steel conductors that were built into the base construction. This field kept gravity at a comfortable and healthy Earth standard 1G. It had long been known that human beings could not live long term in anything less than .8G without losing dangerous amounts of bone density and muscle mass. The development of artificial gravity in the mid-21^st century had been the key factor in allowing the biggest mass migration of humans in history to take place. It was the artificial gravity that allowed sixty million people to live and work on Mars and above it. But in the agricultural fields the artificial gravity was not necessary. Not only was it cost prohibitive to maintain and install, it was also somewhat of a hindrance to operations. The crops actually grew better in the considerably weaker Martian gravity. And the harvesting machines and maintenance trucks could carry more and used less electricity since they and their cargoes were lighter. But for human beings used to walking around and functioning in 1G, performing tasks in one third of that was something that had to be done carefully. It was quite easy to push a little hard during a step and suddenly find yourself a meter in the air and tumbling towards the ground.

This greenhouse, and in fact all of the greenhouses in the surrounding eight hundred square kilometers, had once been the property of Interplanetary Food Products, which had been the fourth largest agricultural company on Mars. But as of two weeks before, IFP had ceased to exist. Agricorp, thanks to a multi-billion dollar merger of assets, was now the owner of everything that IFP had possessed. It was a merger that had been much lauded in the business sections of the Internet services as being far-reaching and progressive. Agricorp stock had increased nearly fifteen percent since the merger became official.

"I hope we get this thing done real quick," Brent said as they opened the storage compartments and removed their folded blue biosuits. "It's almost quitting time. The overtime would be nice but a couple a hits of some good green at the bar would be nicer."

"Shit," Lon said, kicking off the canvas shoes he wore and tossing them up on the truck, "we can't work overtime anymore, remember? We work for Agricorp now. Overtime has to be approved by management in advance or you work for free."

"What do you mean?" Brent asked, wondering if his coworker was joking or not. "That doesn't apply to overtime we pull trying to finish a job, does it? I thought it was just for shift work."

"Nope," Lon replied. "It applies to all overtime, for anything. I checked with Jack before we came out here. He says if we're not done with this blower by the time 4:30 rolls around, to just pack up and leave it until tomorrow. Nobody is to run past their scheduled shift for anything. No exceptions."

Brent shook his head at the idiocy of that. "So they would rather have us leave a blower open to the dust all fuckin' night then pay us time and a half for thirty or forty minutes?"

Lon gave a cynical smile. "Ain't our new bosses smart? You ask me, I'm honored to work for the biggest corporation in the solar system. Their vision and frugality is something to be admired and imitated."

"God almighty," Brent said, kicking off his own shoes. "Now I've heard just about everything."

The biosuits that they wore were designed and manufactured by the same company that made suits for the Martian Planetary Guard. They were constructed of form fitting reinforced plastic that provided near-perfect insulation. An inner sleeve that formed to the body when the suit was activated served the duel purpose of maintaining the proper body pressurization — for the atmospheric pressure on Mars was considerably less than the minimum required to sustain human life — and maintaining proper body temperature — for the outside temperature of Mars, even on the equator, rarely climbed above 0 degrees Celsius. Lon stepped into his suit and pulled it tight, making sure it was properly positioned. Having a suit activate while a portion of the inner sleeve was askew could be a painful and even dangerous experience, particularly if the askew portion happened to be near the genitals.

Once things seemed to be aligned properly he pulled his helmet from the storage compartment and placed it on his head. The helmet was a lightweight, airtight vessel that would pressurize when the suit was turned on. The air supply came from a small, flat tank on the front of the suit. Attached to the tank was an oxygen and nitrogen extractor, a much smaller version of the machines that kept the air flowing in the cities. The extractor would continually draw in those two elements from the thin atmosphere and keep the tank full of breathable air. Lon, as a member of the MPG, was in top physical shape. As such, except during heavy exertion, the extractor on his suit would be able to supply the tank faster than he could breathe it down. This meant he could stay outside all day if necessary, urinating into a sponge device inside his shorts and drinking water from the small storage vessel that fed a straw in his helmet. Only the need for food or defecation would force him inside; two biological functions that were addressed in the military version of the biosuit but not the civilian version.

Lon gave his helmet a final twist, locking it into place. A small green light appeared in the corner of his visor display. This told him that the seal was intact and the suit was ready for activation. He spared a glance over at Brent, seeing that he was still struggling to pull his own suit tight over the bulk of his body. Brent was not a member of the MPG and was not particularly fond of physical exercise. What he was fond of doing was sitting in a bar or at home and smoking bag after bag of cheap marijuana, which in turn led him to eat quite a bit of food. The result of all this was that he was more than twenty kilos overweight and that he tended to draw more air from his biosuit than it could replace, even during non-exerting work. This technically placed him in violation of safety standards for an outside worker but IFP management had always looked the other way about it. As long as the work got done, IFP had not cared how it was accomplished or whether or not it was accomplished safely. But now that IFP management had been replaced by Agricorp management, who had already proved to be much more stringent and nit-picking about such things, Lon wondered if Brent's next physical exam was going to be his last. But then there was a strong possibility that neither one of them were going to even make it to their next annual exam. The blue collar workers of the former IFP force were still awaiting word on the inevitable merger-related "elimination of positions" that came every time two companies became one. Usually, especially when Agricorp was involved, it was the smaller of the two merged company's workers who bore the brunt of the cuts.

"Suit computer," Lon said into the throat microphone, addressing the voice-activated circuit that controlled the suit. It was necessary to address the computer by name, such as it was, so that it would not inadvertently mistake some aspect of normal conversation for a command. "User logging on."

"Go ahead," said the artificial, vaguely male voice that the cheap computer had been programmed with.

"User Lon Fargo. 897-78-98-9876-34."

The suit computer quickly accessed the Internet via a cellular antenna in the far corner of the greenhouse. It then accessed the Agricorp main intranet for Martian operations, searched its employee databanks and found that that name matched that social security number and that that employee was currently authorized to utilize an Agricorp biosuit. It then compared Lon's voice pattern with the pattern it had stored and concluded that they were both the same. This took a little over two and a half seconds. "Log on accepted," it told him. "Awaiting command."

"Suit computer," Lon said, "testing procedure."

"Stand by." The computer performed a complete safety check of all seals and circuits. This took nearly ten seconds. When it was done and satisfied that Lon would not be decompressed if he stepped outside, it said: "Test complete. Your suit is functioning properly."

"Nice to know," Lon muttered. "Suit computer, activate suit."

"Activation in progress," the computer answered.

Lon took a deep breath and braced himself. The activation sequence was not painful by any means, at least not if the suit was being worn correctly, but it was not exactly one of life's great pleasures either. He felt the entire surface area of his body, from the bottom of his neck downward, being slowly compressed. For a moment it was difficult to breathe at all as the plastic constricted the rise and fall of his chest. But once the proper pressure was reached, the constriction eased up, allowing free movement. No sooner had the body section pressurized than the hissing of air against his face began. That was the pressurization of the helmet portion of the suit. The air had an industrial, almost chemical smell to it that was actually caused by the delivery system, not the air itself.

"Activation complete," the computer told him when it was done. "All systems working properly."

"Suit computer, activate radio link with suit uh..." he paused to look at the number stenciled on the right sleeve of Brent's suit. He had to read it sideways since Brent, having just successfully closed his body inside, was putting on his helmet. "Five seven five nine three two... uh six."

"Link established," the computer said. "Be advised that the specified suit is not currently active."

"No shit, dickwad," he replied. The computer said nothing in return, had in fact not even heard his remark since the proper salutation had not prefaced it.

It took another two minutes for Brent to go through his safety check and activation sequence. Once he was done and had his radio link active, he looked over at Lon. "You ready," he asked.

"I'm ready," Lon said. "Let's do it."

He walked over to a control panel on the truck and opened the access hatch. A small computer screen was beneath it. He activated the screen and instructed it to link up with both his and Brent's suit computers. It asked for authorization in the form of names, social security numbers, and voiceprints. They provided this information. Once that was complete Lon instructed the truck computer to power up the airlock at the end of the boom.

"Airlock active," replied the truck computer over their radio.

The airlock was nothing more than a steel box, two meters square by two meters deep. At the top was a synthetic rubber cushion that would form a seal against the roof of the greenhouse. Lon and Brent stepped onto the back of the truck and picked up their two large tool chests, which had been stored against the hydraulic housing. Lon swung his leg over the side of the airlock first, the thin material of the suit allowing almost normal range of motion. Once he was inside, Brent handed him the tool chests, hoisting them up and over with absurd ease although, had they been in 1G, they would have weighed more than thirty kilograms each. Lon set them on the floor and Brent hefted his own bulk into the box. With the two of them inside, the quarters were a little cramped but they would only have to put up with it for a few minutes.

"You all set?" Lon asked, putting his hands on the boom controls. The glove portions of the biosuits were thin and were designed to allow as much dexterity of the fingers as possible but even so, any fine movements were awkward. As such the controls were overly large.

"Take us up," Brent told him, settling in against the wall. "Let's get this shit over with."

Lon pushed upward on the control yoke and the hydraulic boom began to extend, moving the airlock upward and outward. The roof access panel was 1.5 meters square and set into the glass of the ceiling twenty meters above the road. It was marked by an outline of black paint. The idea was to make sure that the entire outline was within the airlock before the panel was opened. If it were not, an explosive decompression would occur when the hatch was opened, causing the blast doors in the 500 meter quadrant around the hatch to come slamming upward from the underground panels in which they were housed. Though the blast doors would protect everyone beyond the immediate quadrant, those unprotected workers inside of it would die a nasty death of decompression and suffocation. Lon's aim with the boom was at its usual level of perfection. The rubber seal pressed firmly against the glass leaving the black outline in almost the exact center. A flip of a switch caused the airlock's hydraulic system to apply constant upward pressure, making the seal airtight.

"Truck computer," he said. "Decompress airlock."

"Decompression sequence in progress," the computer replied.

From below them the powerful exhaust fans began to remove the air from the inside of the lock and expel it out into the greenhouse. The airlock would not be reduced to a complete state of vacuum, as would have been the case had they been in space, but would instead be reduced to the atmospheric pressure outside. The outside air pressure was a greatly variable number on Mars. It changed constantly from day to day as vast portions of the mainly carbon dioxide atmosphere were constantly frozen and thawed and refrozen in the polar regions of the planet. The truck computer automatically established a link with the Martian Weather Bureau, which kept track of current conditions, and downloaded the latest barometric reading. Of course in addition to the constant shifting of pressure due to polar freezing, the pressure was different from place to place depending upon elevation as well. And, unlike on Earth, there were no oceans in which to base a standard 0 elevation. The MWB, as did the rest of Mars, used the elevation of New Pittsburgh, Mars' first settlement, as its standard. Since the Eden area greenhouse was nearly a thousand meters lower in elevation than New Pittsburgh, which sat atop a huge plateau, the computer had to do some adjustments of the figure it received. This was all a standard part of living and working in an environment where human beings were not meant to live and work. Most Martians hardly gave such things a thought although they frustrated Earthling to hysterics at times.

"Decompression complete," the computer told them ninety seconds after it had begun. "Airlock seal is intact. It is safe to egress."

"Got it," Lon said, looking up at the number printed on the access hatch. "Suit computer, establish radio link with Agricorp Eden Operations."

"Establishing link," the computer replied. A moment later: "Link is active."

Lon told the AEO computer that two workers would be atop greenhouse number A-594 near access panel A-594-12 for approximately one hour. He then asked the computer to open that particular panel for him. Once again he was asked for his name and social security number and once again his voiceprint was compared with that in the files. The computer then took the additional step of comparing Lon's stated mission with the work orders for the day that had been filed in its memory banks. At last, satisfied that Lon and Brent were not terrorists attempting to disrupt Agricorp operations and cut into profits, it consented to their request.

"Access panel A-594-12 is opening now," they were told.

There was a very slight hiss of mingling air as the square panel above them slid along its track. Red sand and dirt, blown up there by the constant wind that swept the planetary surface, dropped down upon them. Above them the natural red tint of the Martian sky, which had looked distinctly purple through the tinted glass roof, could be seen in all of its glory. The sky was completely cloudless. Cloud formations, while common in the higher and lower latitudes, were almost unheard of in the equatorial regions.

Lon climbed out first, stepping on the ladder that was a permanent part of the airlock's wall. He pulled himself out onto the glass roof and then kneeled down next to the hatch to pull up the two tool chests that Brent handed up to him. He set them to the side and then stood up, allowing Brent to extricate himself from the lock. This portion of the greenhouse roof was only a few meters from the southwest corner of the large building. Twenty meters below them was a paved access road that ran alongside. The road, which was used to access the roof if major repairs or renovations, those involving heavier pieces of equipment, needed to be done, had not been plowed in a while and had drifts of sand marring its surface. Back at the Agricorp operations building at the edge of the city (not to be confused with the Agricorp main building downtown — the Earthlings that ran the company certainly would not wish to work out of the same building as the common field hands) were large hydrogen powered trucks and even tracked vehicles that were used for heavy maintenance and repairs. On the other side of the road there was two hundred meters of open space — just enough to allow heavy equipment through — before the next greenhouse began. A narrow connecting tunnel near the far end joined the greenhouse to its neighbor which was in turn joined to its neighbor, and so on and so forth, all the way back to the main tunnel that led from the operations building to the first greenhouse. This allowed workers and heavy harvest machines, as well as container trucks, to get to where they were needed without having to go outside. It was through this system of tunnels and interior roads that Brent and Lon had driven their electric maintenance truck to where it was now parked.

Looking outward from the roof of number A-594, just poking upward from the western horizon, the tops of the Eden high rises could be seen some thirty kilometers distant. Aside from that the tinted blue of greenhouse after greenhouse, all a uniform twenty meters high and two square kilometers in size, covered the land like a blanket. Lon and Brent were at the near edge of the Eden area's agricultural land. They could only see to the horizon, which was not very far on Mars, so only about a half percent of the total number of greenhouses in the area were visible to them from twenty meters above the ground. And Eden's agricultural holdings, while the largest on the planet, were only twenty-two percent of the total on Mars. Eight other cities, all along the Martian equator, were centered among similar complexes of artificial growing environments. Staring out upon the sea of glass and steel and realizing that you were only looking at a minute fraction of what was actually there, one could begin to fathom why it was that Agricorp and the other food production companies of Mars were the most powerful entities in the solar system. Within those greenhouses everything from range cattle to marijuana to soybeans were produced year around, free of the perils of insects or weather. Nearly every type of food that was consumed by human beings or animals, whether they were on Mars or Earth or the Jupiter system, whether it was junk food or vegetables or meat, came from Mars in one way or another. It was hard to believe sometimes that all of this food production, which employed more Martians than anything else on the planet, and all of the wealth that came from it, most of which was sent back to rich stockholders on Earth, had been born as a simple experiment a hundred years before.

The first Martian colonists had come, not to grow food, but to exploit the rich deposits of iron ore that lay beneath the higher and lower latitudes of the planet. The supply of easily mined ore on Earth had been almost completely depleted in the early 21^st century by the decade long World War III. The bloodiest conflict in human history had raged on three different continents and had killed more than two hundred million people. During the struggle, the combatants had mined iron ore at a mad pace from every available location on the planet turning it into guns, tanks, aircraft, ships, missiles, and bombs. By the time the last shell was fired and the formal surrender ceremonies were conducted, a large percentage of the reachable iron ore was gone forever, exploded into fragments that littered the battlefields of North America, China, and Eastern Europe.

Aside from wiping out the iron supply, World War III had also spawned the two spheres of influence that were now the constantly bickering entities of EastHem and WestHem. WestHem consisted of the North and South American landmasses and was ruled by Caucasians from the former United States and Canada. EastHem, the larger, though poorer of the two, consisted of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. It was ruled by Caucasians of the former British Isles, Germany, and France. EastHem and WestHem had been the victorious allies of World War III, defeating the Asian Powers alliance of China, Japan, Korea, and India. The Asian Powers had launched a surprise attack on January 1, 2009 into Siberia and the Middle East before jumping across the Bering Straight into Alaska, Canada, and, eventually Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Their goal had been a lightening fast capture of the world's petroleum supplies before the opposition had a chance to gear up to a war footing and stop them. They had come very close to achieving this goal in the first months of the fighting. Only a few lucky guesses on the part of the American Army and a few instances of bad luck on the part of the Chinese Army had allowed the Asian Powers to be stopped short of the Texas and California oil fields in North America. Here, the war had stagnated into a bloody stalemate for the next eight years, with millions upon millions dying but with the lines not moving much more than a few kilometers back and forth. Only the development of practical, portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft lasers had broken this stalemate and allowed the WestHem and EastHem alliance to slowly, grudgingly push the Asian Powers back and eventually destroy them with strategic and tactical bombing campaigns against their homelands.

No sooner had the fighting of World War III ended then the long, bitter cold war between EastHem and WestHem began as each vied for superior resource development and strategic positioning. The cold war was marked by an intense space race as each half of the world tried to secure precious resources that were only available in space. It is one of the cruelest ironies in history that World War III, aside from depleting the supply of exploitable iron ore, also depleted the very resource that it had been fought over in the first place. After ten years of all-out mechanized warfare the world's supply of petroleum had been reduced to almost nothing. Thus fusion power for electricity and space flight and hydrogen combustion engines for propulsion became the rage of the future. Huge platforms were built in low Earth orbit and large, interplanetary ships — at first only for cargo and personnel, but later, warships — were constructed. An entire new method and theory of warfare developed along with the spacecraft as each side theorized and planned for the best way to fight the other if it came to that.

Chapter 1C »