It’s three weeks – 30 days – since the election. Meena is preparing for the first proper Council meeting later today. (The first first, on results day, was mainly ceremonial.) She wishes she’d found a way of ending up with fewer Type 2s on the Council. Of course, she can always co-opt Type 1s, on the grounds of specialist knowledge or skills, to redress the balance. But the 2s will still be there.
It’s her own classification, based on her long years as mayor. Two types of people volunteer for roles in the town’s management. Type 1s are those with experience of leading and managing businesses or substantial organisations, who earned that responsibility through merit. Type 2s are those who have always aspired to such responsibilities but have never held them, usually on the basis of lack of merit… and they feel cheated. And the sad fact is that Type 1s tend not to volunteer for office because they’ve had quite enough of that sort of thing in their careers. And the sadder fact is that Type 2s put themselves forward in droves, perhaps in hope of proving their former employers wrong. It’s the 1s who advance the business of the Council, while the 2s pursue quixotic notions, irrelevant minutiae and petty vendettas against other 2s. Grrr! Just thinking about it makes her cross.
First business is to address the propositions that voters have approved with the required supermajority. The first – to designate the grounds of the First Flight Memorial as the town’s burial ground – had surprised her when it was submitted. Where else? had been her immediate reaction. It was obviously of the town and for the town, and the only patch of land that could be thought the least bit hallowed. So she had gone out there – on foot, alone – and tried to see it as the townsfolk might. And it came to her at once: in their eyes the memorial could appear somehow reserved for her family, the Canaries. The more she thought about it the more obvious it became: the centrepiece is MSM-1, their ship; the drystone wall around it was laboriously crafted by Kimi and Beau; the only grave is that of their late shipmate Lol. Actually, there is one other grave – a baby that was stillborn in 0002 – but even that could feed into the narrative since it was Kimi and Meena who had suggested burying the poor mite there. She must give this one her prominent support.
The second proposition was not a surprise, since she had planted it. It concerned the age of consent to sexual activity. As parents of the two eldest children in town, who have entered puberty since the previous election, it concerns the Canary adults more pressingly than anyone else. But they worried that if Mangal and TT saw their own parents promoting the discussion then they might take it as encouragement, or even pressure, to get jiggy as soon as they reached whatever age ended up being agreed. That’s why the Canaries had discreetly asked the parents of younger children to, between them, frame the proposition and gather the necessary 5 signatures. It had all turned out a bit of a fustercluck, though, because the constitution required propositions to be framed as straight for/against statements. So three propositions had been put forward, one for 8 years old, one for 9 and one for 10. These correspond to Earth ages of 15, 17 and 19. The most common consent ages on Earth are 16 and 18, but everyone agreed that specifying the local age as a half year would look excessively arbitrary; hence the attempt to bracket the “right” options. Logic dictates that anyone who supports one of the lower options must also support its higher alternatives: someone who votes Yes for age 8 should also be in favour of consent at ages 9 and 10. Yet the vote results imply that a youngster can give consent at age 9… but only until they are 10. This will only make the Council’s discussion of what is already an emotive issue that much harder.
The next proposition is to allow multiple choice propositions. Surely that will pass without discussion, if she schedules it straight after age of consent.
Those are the three propositions that passed, but doubtless some of the Type 2s will try to reanimate the ones that didn’t. So, with a sigh, she turns to those.
There is the inevitable recurring call for a curfew. At the meetings to promote it, which had been poorly attended, the overt case seemed to be that townsfolk being out and about made it harder for others to sleep (despite the fact that habs all have their bedrooms at the rear, away from the Plaza). She guesses that the true motivation is that the promoters are against fun, when it is being had by other people. There was also some nonsense about feeling unsafe at night, despite the fact that there has not been a single crime of any description in the town’s entire history. This is the third year that a curfew has been demanded, but even with the proposed start time pushed back from the original 8·50 to now 9·50 (equivalent to 9pm and 11:30pm on Earth), it only got 8 votes from an electorate of 39. She can afford to ignore this one, she feels.
That leaves the one on clothing. This has been coming round in various forms, year after year, for even longer. The first attempt was a requirement for all townsfolk to be fully clothed at all times in all public places: 7 votes. In the second year the promoters added an exemption for young children and breastfeeding mothers: 11 votes. The third attempt added a further exemption for the sundeck: 12 votes. (At this point the promoters should have realised they were fighting a losing battle since the electorate had grown by 8 new settlers in the intervening year.) This year they have cut the demand right back to one day a week: down to 10 votes, despite the arrival of a further 8 new settlers. This bothers Meena. Despite her personal dislike of the tedium of pulling clothes on and off – not to mention of washing and repairing, and the cost and hassle of replacing them – she has to acknowledge that there is a hard core of townsfolk who seem genuinely upset by the sight of people as their gods made them. And the one-day-a-week concession seems moderate and neighbourly; one of the 10 votes is hers. She decides to take it for a walk. She needs a quick word with KK in any case.
She heads out of Hab 1 and up the steps to the Gallery. She waves to Charles – it must be a double-crossword day if he’s still going – then exchanges a couple of cheery words with two women sitting whisper-close on a bench. She walks past the playgroup, careful not to catch Jazzy’s eye: as the youngest of the three toddlers in town she gets spoiled by the others, and loves it!
Meena finds a clear stretch of rail and stands looking down over the Plaza. It’s come a long way on her watch, from empty shell rising out of the dirt to a busy town square beneath a lofty roof framed by the two rows of habs, with a tree at each corner, benches round the edges and an inviting open space bustling with (mainly) happy people.
In choosing their strictly weight-limited personal possessions for the flight up, several settlers included a chess set. Now Ana organises contests. Meena is pleased to see that TT, who likes to present a brash and slightly scatty face to the world, is one of the players. She has no idea who’s ahead – the game does not speak to her, despite being one of India’s gifts to the world – but she can say that TT has taken more pieces.
In the centre of the Plaza Kimi is rigging the volleyball net. Sport on Mars was pretty much invented by Kimi. At first take that statement might seem extravagant, fulsome even: the crew of MSM-1 brought the equipment and the rules with them, and all they had to do was play. But it’s not that simple.
In 40% of Earth’s gravity balls, bats, people… everything stops behaving the way the mind and body expect. Equipment and rules have to be adapted in order to retrieve the essence of the game. Balls are doctored to make them heavier and less bouncy. People who have mastered the Mars walk suddenly find that it’s a piece of cake compared to the Mars run. And distances are suddenly deceptive: kick a ball like you would on Earth and it will go higher (less gravity) but less far (greater mass), then roll further (less friction).
Adapting a sport for these factors isn’t enough. It also needs versions for smaller spaces – your 5-a-side equivalents. The Plaza might be the largest enclosed public space on Mars but it’s not nearly big enough for 11-a-side soccer, for instance.
As a lifelong sports enthusiast and a good intuitive physicist, it was almost inevitable that Kimi would start this work when she arrived in 0001 and continue it thereafter. She sometimes wonders if she will live to see the day when outdoor sports become practicable. No-one fancies running around in suits on rock-strewn regolith, when a punctured suit would be fatal. And golf? Forget it. The planet is one massive bunker, all the way round.
But Kimi would love to see the effect on tennis, for instance, of playing in such thin air: the ball would keep more speed, but spin would be less effective… it would be fascinating to study.
All of which means that Kimi is not only the inventor of Martian sport but also its governing body. And, for several sports, still world champion.
The sports requiring least adaptation? Badminton, volleyball and snooker. Badminton is very popular, and there are fiercely competed ladders running at every ability level. Snooker, along with billiards and pool, remains theoretical: who’s going to blow 600 kg of the mass budget on sending up a table?
Reaching the other end of the Gallery Meena saunters down the steps and meanders down the east, even-numbered, side of the Plaza. As she passes Dave-o she asks how his mum is doing – “Real good, thanks” – then presses on, thanking Marijka (softly) for her help with the age of consent petition and, a bit later, telling Pedro she’s looking forward to seeing him at the Council meeting later: he’s one of the new members.
At the other end of the Plaza the classroom blinds are open so she has a quick squint at the screen: is that bird recognition? They won’t get much practice here! But then the town offers classes on topics such as zoology, vintage cars and marine navigation, as well as skills that can actually be used here, like creative writing, languages, music, dance and programming. People are strange!
Crossing to the odd-numbered side she comes to the meeting room. It has the Engaged sign showing so she passes that by and looks in at the surgery: no-one there.
This brings her to the start of the Connector. With a bit of luck, 500 metres of uninterrupted thinking time. She always enjoys the underfloor heating, without which they’d all have to own shoes.
She exchanges cheery words with a party of workers heading the other way – probably to continue the builds of Habs 12 & 13 – and arrives at the Hive with fresh ideas on how to run the meeting later.
KK is in his cubicle and greets her warmly. She tells him she’s got a video meeting with MSM-12 tomorrow and will press them to nail their accommodation requirements – is it OK if she gives them three more days for a final decision? He tells her that’s fine and she sets off back. She could have commed him, but the walk has done her, and her office, good. Now, she hopes, for another 500 metres of productive thinking.
●
“I go to my Python class,” says Kimi as she heads for the door of Hab 1 an hourM later.
“Bye bye Mommy,” says Jazzy with a vigorous wave.
“G’luck!” calls Beau. Then to his daughter, “You wanna come be my deputy?”
“On your soldiers?”
“Yeah, on my shoulders.”
“Yes please!”
He hoists her up before clearing away lunch – it never hurts to model domesticity! That done, he heads for the door. His “Duck!” chimes with hers as they go through. She giggles.
Out in the Plaza he turns left, for no particular reason. What his brief apprenticeship with Jeb has taught him is that the art of sheriffry is not in doing but in being: being seen, being known, being approachable, being interested. And he can be all that with the cutest kid in town astride his shoulders, playing with his hair.
As he passes Hab 7 he looks in. People sometimes go in there for peace or prayer – it’s the closest the town has to a church – and they don’t always remember to turn out the lights.
In the Plaza they meet Eunice and Harper. By their ages you’d think them mother and daughter, but their demeanour suggests something else. Eunice makes a great fuss of Jazzy, complimenting her cheeky grin and generally giving it the full granny. When she asks Jazzy why she’s all the way up there on her daddy’s shoulders, she proudly replies, “I deppitty!”
With this and similar encounters it takes them over 15¢ to cover the length of the Plaza. Which is the point.
When they reach the classroom Beau stoops down a little so that Jazzy can peer in through the blinds. “There’s Mommy!” she squeals, and he can feel her waving her little arm like mad. Kimi highlights a block of code on the screen, says something to her students, then pulls a silly face and waves back. Jazzy giggles.
They amble on down towards the start of the Connector. If this was a movie, thinks Beau, the doors would open with a ‘pt.sheeoo’ sound as we approach, just like the doors on every store, office block and doctor’s office on Earth don’t. So as he pushes the door open he goes, “Pt.sheeoo,” which prompts a Silly Daddy! from Jazzy.
It’s a lot colder here – heat loss from a tube is much greater than from the chunky buildings at either end, hence the doors – and Beau lifts Jazzy down; she’ll be warmer if she walks. She reaches up for his hand. She knows the routine.
Responsibility for the Connector is shared. The Hive doesn’t have a sheriff – they’re all employees – so Beau’s contact is with the foreman, KK. Not that there’s ever anything to liaise about. One benefit of living with constrained resources is that there’s never a litter problem – every scrap of material has value. And no would-be graffiti vandal has yet managed to smuggle up a can of spray paint.
They take their time toddling through. When Jazzy begins to tire she tells Beau she wants to look out of the window. He hoists her up to one of the small portholes. There’s nothing to see but the red dusty rock-strewn plain. Soon she’s ready to walk again.
The doors at the other end – pt.sheeoo – take them into the warmth of the Hive. Beau hoists Jazzy to his shoulders once more and goes over to KK, who greets them with, “Hello my fren’! Hello princess!”
He and Beau update each other on the nothing-of-concern that has beset each establishment since they last spoke. Then KK says, “I have a big load – components for Hab 12 – that will go up tomorrow, around 3·20. Please put the usual notice for your people to delay exercising until… maybe 3·40?”
“Sure.”
They are respectful of boundaries, and neither would think of comming the other’s people direct.
“One more thing, my fren’,” continues KK. “Your very clever, very polite son is still here. I don’t want to be in troubles with his mother for keeping him in the afternoon when that is not the deal, but it would be wrong if I tell him go home.”
“Is he doing something for you?”
KK does the rocking-hand gesture. When Beau raises his eyebrows, he continues, “Yes, he is writing a program that will be useful to me. No, I don’ need it for a few days.”
“I’ll talk to him,” says Beau and follows KK’s nod towards where Mangal is working. Jazzy spots him, hunched over a keyboard and darting his gaze around three large monitors, and squirms to get down. She runs over to him and taps him on the leg. He absently hoists her onto a knee, musses her hair, loops his arms around her and carries on with his work.
“Hi, son!” says Beau when he reaches the desk.
“Just a mo,” he replies. He highlights some almost-words, types something in their place and looks up. “Hi, dad. I know, I should be back home studying. I just need to sort this one thing out, while it’s all in my head. Five cents? Ten at most.”
He does this quite a lot, thinks Beau. But he’s good at this stuff, it makes him happy, and it’s a useful skill. “OK,” he says, “but any flak from your mother impacts you, not me. Deal?”
“Deal. Thanks.”
“Jazzy, you wanna to stay with Mangal? Or go on being my deputy?”
“Er, I think… M-dog.” She looks up at him through her eyelashes. “But I do like deppitty.”