CHAPTER EIGHT
AIR ABOVE YOUR HEAD
Camp One, June 1980, before the engineering handover
The first dome proved people could stand beneath open space.
The second proved they could live there.
It was larger, reinforced and partly shielded by berms of Martian soil piled against its lower walls. Transparent sections remained overhead and along one side, enough to admit natural light without pretending radiation did not exist.
The engineers called it Habitat Dome One.
Everyone else called it the Big Room.
The name survived despite increasingly formal signs.
Inside, the colony installed tables, exercise equipment, a medical station and open walking space. Plants from Alina’s program occupied one corner. Not crops. Plants chosen because they looked alive.
A small tree arrived from Earth in a sealed agricultural container.
It was barely a tree at all, a young dwarf citrus with a trunk thinner than a man’s thumb.
Alina guarded it like state property.
When Hale reached toward one leaf she slapped his hand.
“I was looking.”
“Look with your eyes.”
“I’m from Texas. We touch trees.”
“Then go back there.”
People walked laps around the Big Room after shifts.
At first they did it for exercise.
Then they did it because walking without a destination felt luxurious.
Children did not yet exist on Mars, but adults rediscovered childish things.
They raced.
They played ball.
They lay on the floor and looked upward through the transparent panels at a sky no human generation before theirs had ever seen from inside a shirtsleeve environment.
The Big Room became the place where arguments happened because it was the only place large enough to walk away from somebody without leaving the room.
Shaw discovered this during a dispute between the international power team and the Chinese manufacturing section.
“You cannot increase draw by twelve per cent without telling us,” Morozov said.
Li walked beside Morozov around the dome.
“We told you.”
“You sent a request.”
“That is telling.”
“That is asking.”
“The request was approved.”
“By logistics.”
“Logistics owns allocation.”
“Physics owns electricity.”
Shaw walked behind them listening.
At the third lap she interrupted.
“Sergei, can the grid carry it?”
“Yes.”
“Li, can the new line be staged?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are we still walking?”
Morozov and Li looked at each other.
Morozov said, “Exercise.”
The Big Room also changed architecture.
Until then, every cubic metre of Mars had been justified by function.
A bunk existed because a person slept.
A corridor existed because a person had to pass.
A workshop existed because something had to be repaired. An airlock existed because pressure had to hold.
The dome existed partly because people needed somewhere to be.
That idea entered future plans.
The first civilian settlement drawings included open communal spaces, small private rooms, shops and recreation areas.
Someone proposed a park.
The engineering committee rejected it as premature.
Alina quietly reserved plant capacity for it anyway.