By Mike Muzzy · © 2026 Mike Muzzy. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE FLAG

Arrivals, early 1981

The Martian flag had first been planted beside a habitat that could barely hold four men.

There had been no elaborate ceremony. The original landing crew had enough to do getting the habitat operational, checking the seals and making certain the equipment they had brought from Earth would survive its first night on Mars.

The flag had gone up because the mission agreement required it.

No American flag. No Soviet flag. No collection of national colours arranged according to the size of each country's contribution.

One flag for the settlement.

It had seemed a reasonable arrangement when the agreement was written. On Mars, where almost every machine carried a manufacturer's name and every container had an origin label, the rule proved harder to explain.

The Americans had supplied equipment. The Soviets had supplied equipment. So had other participating nations. Their engineers knew exactly who had built what, and they were not inclined to forget it.

But none of them could claim the ground beneath their boots.

The original flag had remained outside through the first months of construction. Dust worked its way into the fabric. The colour faded under the sunlight, and the exposed edges began to fray.

Nakamura noticed the damage during an inspection.

He climbed the mast, released the fastenings and brought the flag down before the next storm could finish the job.

It went into a sealed case.

Someone suggested sending it back to Earth.

Nakamura refused.

“It belongs here.”

The case eventually found a place inside Arrivals, where it could be seen without opening it. A small label gave the date of the landing and the names of the four engineers.

A replacement flag was raised outside the terminal.

By early 1981, there were people in Camp One who had never seen the original landing site as anything more than a collection of buildings. The flag had become part of the scenery. They passed it on their way to work, sometimes without looking up.

The argument about what it represented had not gone away.

The Geneva negotiations had settled the question of administration, at least on paper. The United Nations Extra-Planetary Administration would oversee the settlement until permanent Martian civil institutions could be established.

The Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact partners had secured a separate residential zone. Their personnel would live under their own administrative arrangements, including the communal facilities and political obligations demanded by Moscow.

China had objected strongly to the division. Its representatives had argued that allowing one political bloc to organise its own residential territory was a dangerous precedent. The compromise had eventually been accepted, but nobody involved had mistaken agreement for friendship.

The separate dome was being built.

The charter still applied to everyone.

That was the point Shaw intended to make at the ceremony.

The event was held inside Arrivals. The hall was one of the few places large enough to accommodate the representatives without interrupting the work of an entire department.

The benches were moved against the walls. Someone cleaned the floor, although boots began marking it again almost immediately. A technician checked the microphone twice, then left a spare cable beside the lectern.

The Martian flag hung behind it.

Pavel Orlov, the Soviet contingent's duty officer, arrived from the Soviet residential section with two members of his staff. He greeted Shaw, acknowledged the other representatives and took his place.

The Chinese representative stood across the room.

Neither approached the other.

Shaw noticed. She also noticed that both had arrived on time, which was more than could be said for several of the engineering supervisors.

There were seventy-three people on the surface who could attend without abandoning essential posts.

Most came.

The others remained at their stations. The power plant could not be left unattended for a declaration, and the crews monitoring the pressure systems had no intention of trusting a ceremony to keep the air inside.

A camera had been set up near the rear wall. The recording would be transmitted to Earth, where the participating governments could watch their agreement being formally acknowledged.

Shaw had received instructions about the order of proceedings. The document specified who should stand where, when the flag should be displayed and which passage of the charter was to be read aloud.

It had also suggested that the national representatives be invited to make brief statements.

She had declined that part.

There would be enough speeches on Earth.

When everyone was ready, Shaw stepped to the microphone.

“Until permanent civil institutions are established, the inhabited settlement and associated operational zones are administered as neutral Martian territory under the joint charter of the participating nations.”

She read the remaining provisions concerning shared infrastructure, access to essential services and the authority of the colony command.

The words had been debated for months.

Here, they took less than two minutes to read.

Shaw looked up from the page.

“That is what Earth wrote.”

A few people smiled.

“What it means here is simpler. We work under one roof. We breathe the same air. If one section fails, nobody's passport will fix it.”

She glanced towards the assembled representatives.

“Some of us will live in different sections. That was agreed before the buildings were finished. It doesn't change who is responsible for keeping them running.”

Orlov listened without expression.

The Chinese representative kept his eyes on Shaw.

“The power lines don't stop at a political boundary. Neither do the water pipes. When something breaks, the nearest qualified person will deal with it. We can discuss whose responsibility it was afterwards.”

That brought a little more laughter.

Shaw waited for it to end.

“We will argue. We will continue.”

She folded the paper.

“That is all.”

For a moment nobody moved. The camera operator looked towards the technician beside him, uncertain whether Shaw had finished.

She had.

The representatives came forward to sign the local acknowledgement of the charter. Orlov signed for the Soviet contingent. The Chinese representative followed when his turn came.

Their signatures appeared on the same page.

Morel watched from the back of the room.

“Politicians will hate that speech,” he whispered to Valdés.

“Good.”

Afterwards, a few people stayed to examine the flag and the sealed case containing the original. Nakamura answered a question about the damaged fabric. Someone asked whether the first flag would eventually be returned to Earth for a museum.

“Perhaps,” he said.

He did not offer to arrange it.

Outside, the replacement flag moved slightly in the thin Martian wind.

Inside, the benches were carried back into position. The microphone was disconnected, and the camera recording was prepared for transmission.

Orlov returned to the Soviet section. The Chinese representative went back to his department. Engineers who had stood beside one another during the ceremony collected their tools and returned to the same jobs they had left an hour earlier.

The charter would change some things. The residential division was already changing others.

The flag remained where it was.

No national flags stood beside it.