CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE WINTER SHIFT
Camp One, the cold-season work of late 1980
Mars did not have winter in the way anyone at Camp One remembered winter.
There was no snow against a window, no bare trees. There were numbers instead: falling temperatures, longer heater cycles, pressure seals stiffening before sunrise, batteries surrendering capacity and lubricants becoming reluctant inside machines parked too long outside.
The next round of cold-season work taught them that a settlement could fail without drama.
A seal hardened.
A valve moved slowly.
A cable jacket cracked.
A rover used ten per cent more power than the route plan allowed.
Nothing made headlines. Everything mattered.
Shaw instituted winter inspections with military thoroughness. Every external line received a number. Every pressure hatch received a temperature log. Every rover carried additional survival packs. Every outside crew checked a return time before departure.
The colony complained.
Then a water transfer line froze in an exposed service trench and split along half a metre of pipe.
Nobody complained after that.
Valdés and Voss spent six hours outside replacing the section.
When they returned, ice crystals clung to the lower joints of their suits where moisture from the airlock had frozen.
Voss removed his helmet.
“I would like to file a complaint.”
“With whom?” Valdés asked.
“The planet.”
“Get in line.”
The winter shift also forced the first serious redesign of Camp One.
Early structures had been placed where cargo, terrain and urgency allowed. By 1980 the result resembled a toolbox emptied onto a table. Pressure corridors turned awkward corners. Power cables crossed vehicle routes. Storage sat too close to sleeping quarters. The Mechanical Dome had expanded into spaces reserved for future medical facilities.
Shaw ordered a proper plan.
For three days engineers argued over a map.
The central spine would remain.
Spaceport and technical facilities would cluster close to it.
Agriculture would remain farther out, linked by pressurized transport where practical and rover routes where not.
Mining and processing would expand away from residential pressure volume.
Future civilian habitats would occupy a quieter district on the opposite side of the main service spine from heavy manufacturing.
“Future civilian habitats,” Morel repeated.
Shaw looked at him. “Yes.”
“You say it as though people are coming.”
“They are.”
“How many?”
“Eventually?”
“Yes.”
She looked at the map.
“I don’t think anyone knows.”
That answer changed the room.
Until then, every plan had a number.
Four people.
Sixteen.
Thirty-two.
Sixty.
Now they were drawing for a future without a fixed population.
Li picked up a pencil and extended the manufacturing corridor beyond the edge of the paper.
Morel watched him.
“That is not on the map.”
Li smiled. “Exactly.”