Nomads of Mars
Family keeps cargo train moving
LABYRINTHIA, Oct. 33 - Sitting at the steering wheel of the tractor pulling the 12-car road train from Ares Port, 8-annos-old (15-year-old) Tom Charettier picked out the route ahead as his 7-annos-old (13 years) sister Marguerite kept an eye on the trailing cargo cars.
“It’s easy here, just a day out from Ares Port,” Tom said. “You can see the route the trains have taken to Noctis easy enough, and you just have to follow it.”
The relatively level route is clearly marked by the passage of the many cargo trains that have traveled the 150 km from Ares Port to the Noctis Grange Hall, that opened in July.
“I love it out here. I really like driving the train, though that’s only on the level areas. My Mum and Da do the driving on the climbs and descents,” Tom said.
The six-wheeled tractor pulls two hab cars behind it followed by 10 cargo cars that have self-propulsion and steering capabilities, but depend on the power from the tractor’s fusion engine.
The cars ride on big mesh tires that provide a soft ride over bumps, and each is equipped with dust collectors to avoid creating a low-hanging cloud over the landscape.
“Cargo status?” Tom called as the train began a slow curve to the southwest.
“All cars following in order. No tweaks needed,” Marguerite replied quietly as her mother Liliana, watched the motors and environmentals with 5-annos-old (9 years) Gemma.
“We make sure the cargo stays at the right temperature,” Liliana said. “We make sure the dust collectors keep working so we don’t end up a in a cloud, and Gemma keeps an eye on the hab cars, which are a bit like mobile greenhouses.”
“We have lots of veggies,” Gemma added.
Father Eduoard Charettier came into the tractor cab 15 minutes before 4 p.m., when he takes over driving.
So far, Tom has spent half his life aboard the family’s private cargo train, ferrying goods and people from western end of the Valles Marineris as far as Coprates, some 1,600 km in a straight line from Ares Port and Noctis.
“Generally, we go from Ares Port to Noctis and deliver or swap out cargo,” Eduaord said. “Sometimes we stop at Oudemans and move on to Ius and Geryon, which the kids love, and from there to Melas, with a dinner at the Bottom of the Sea Cantina, sometimes up and over the Melas Labes into Candor or to Coprates and then back to Candor, depending on the loads.”
The nomads of Mars
While, this trip is all cargo, the family sometimes adds a passenger car to take travelers, but mostly thata’s scientists and survey crews en route to their various stations, such as Oudemans, and sometimes up onto the high plains out of the Valley.
Now, they’re carrying a variety of goods and machinery from the Ares Port industrial center to the Grange Hall that functions as a community center, cargo depot as well as a ‘tractor stop’ for cargo trains. There, they’ll swap out some goods with other cargo trains.
The Hall sits at the eastern entrance to the Labyrinth, a maze of deep intersecting valleys spanning hundreds of kilometers that is also home to the remains of the once-massive Noctis Mons volcano, near where the routes to Oudemans Crater and Ius Chasma diverge.
Most of the Labyrinth’s roughly 6,000 inhabitants live within a one- or two-sol drive of the Hall.
After Noctis, the Charettiers head to Ius and Geryon, but the Grange Hall is offering a special treat, a chance to meet with other families that run ferry cargo and passengers across the Valley.
“We’re the nomads of Mars,” Liliana says. “But we’re meeting up with a few other families like ours who will be staying there over the next week, and the kids get a chance to meet kids who are living the same kind of life as they are.”
It’s a life that might seem strange to City dwellers and farmers, but one that seems to suit the family very well. The Charettiers have spent 4 annos in nearly constant motion around the Great Valley with relatively brief stops in all the major settlements in the Valley, including their home base in Corprates.
“We’ve also explored the Labyrinth a bit on smaller cargo runs,” Liliana said. “That’s a very interesting landscape, with all the canyons pointing in different directions. It’s also very challenging as there are some long descents and ascents.”
A couple of big questions
Liliana met her future husband while working in cargo at Ares Port when he came in on one of the early cargo trains helping to supply Coprates.
“Ed came in after a 50-sol trip through Ius Chasma, which was even more difficult back then. We got to talking about carrying cargo and surveying the routes, and I found that and him fascinating,” Liliana said.
“We kept in touch,” Ed said, smiling. “The next time I came back, I had a chance to acquire a used tractor plus a hab car and take on cargo jobs for the City and Ares Port as well as the newer settlements.”
Liliana had finished up her transport contract two annos prior and saw this as an opportunity to to travel around Mars.
“First, he asked me if I’d join his crew, and I said yes to that as well as the next big question,” Liliana said. “We’ve been traveling ever since.”
The family takes breaks in Coprates, where Ed’s sister Marcia (Charettier) runs the annual Tractor Swap, which has grown along with the settlement.
‘It’s turned into a pretty big deal,” Liliana said. “And the kids love it. We try to schedule trips to make it. We took a longer break there in July, and the kids had a blast. We have a permanent hab there, too, even if we don’t see it much.”
Mars is a strict teacher
Like most Martian kids, the children spend most mornings studying, doing homework and assessments and afternoons learning a variety of technical skills, from piloting the cargo train to maintaining the engines and environmentals as well as picking cargo.
“When they’re ready, we train them driving on the easier routes, like from Ares Port to Noctis and Oudemans (Crater),” Ed said. “We take the more complex routes with the difficult ascents and descents ourselves, like Ius Chasma, which can be pretty bumpy and the climb over Melas Labes into Candor Chaos.
The family works with the Coprates school, which provides the study materials and assessments so that the children get credit for their schoolwork.
“The kids get through the work faster, and they don’t get bored,” Liliana said. “There’s a lot to learn and Mars is a good, if very strict teacher.”
At the wheel, Tom made that point.
“Da,” Tom called and Ed came and stood beside him, looking out at the route marked by the mesh tires of the six-wheeled tractors and cargo cars and by the rocks that have been ploughed to the side over time.
“Hold the turn a little longer, over that little rise, and then you can mark out a straight run for about 10k,” Ed said. “And you can add an klick of speed too.”
Tom smiled at his father and looked at a reporter riding along with the family.
“Da’s always telling me to think ahead, to look out for what may be next,” Tom said.
“And?” Ed asked.
Tom looked up, “You can’t turn your back on Mars.”
Learn about Noctis Labyrinthus
What's the future hold for Mars' largest city?
Residents want to know
URBS VALLIS, Oct. 34 - With the election less than three weeks away, residents peppered City (Urbs Vallis) Council members with questions at a lively meeting Thursday about the future direction of their hometown, including whether they can get out of it from time to time.
Residents also raised questions about the potential for small, independent businesses within the City and Ares Port, increased flexibility and choice in housing, home furnishing and clothing, and improved travel connections between the City and the other major Valley settlements.
“I love it here in Tithonia,” City resident and second generation Martian Belinda Patel told the council, “But I’d like to be able to travel to Geryon Montes and Coprates. Right now, that’s almost impossible. Do you have any plans to make travel easier?”
Given the difficulty of traveling by land and the limited availability of local air shuttles, opportunities for travel were likely to remain constrained for some time, City Council President Claude Paddingbury said.
“We’re still a frontier outpost on a dangerous planet,” Paddingbury said. “We don’t really have a surplus of air shuttles to allow leisure travel at this point, but we expect that to grow over time. I’d like to have a different answer, but that’s just the situation.”
The City Council has asked Mars DevCo to increase the frequency of inter-chasmata flights, but the DevCo Planetary Manager Elric Balvicar said the company is heavily focused on in-bound supply train from Earth which is bringing about 2,500 new workers to the City and the Mars Carousel.
“We’re working very hard to make sure everyone is properly accommodated and trained right now. We’re continuing to upgrade our orbital facilities and we’re working in the City and Ares Port are ready for our new Martians,” Balvicar told the meeting.
The Nov. 6 election will see all members of the Valley’s local councils up for an annual vote, with the seven leading candidates all taking seats for the next annos.
The election also includes a ballot question on whether the individual chasmata should establish a Valley-wide Council to supervise development in the Valles Marineris along with Noctis Labyrinthus and Orson Welles Crater.
That question is hotly opposed outside the City, and its passage would depend on obtaining overwhelming support within Urbs Vallis and Ares Port, which are home to just under half of the Valley’s residents.
City residents will also vote on whether to change the name of Mars’ largest town to Tithonia or Tithonium City from Urbs Vallis. Write-in suggestions are also allowed, with WestHill Terrace residents seen favoring the name WestHill.
Room for new ideas?
Second-section resident Jaspar Jackson asked if the City would consider providing more space for individual businesses as the third section of Habtube is completed and work progress on the fourth section.
“As the City grows, our residents are embracing more diverse interests beyond scientific pursuits and building and maintaining the City,” Jackson said. “We have more second-generation Martians whose interests don’t necessarily reflect the reason their parents came here in the first place.”
The City does not currently plan to set aside more room for private businesses beyond that the space it has already set aside for micro businesses such as fabrics, accessories and household goods, City Councillor and Planning Commission President Marcus Wu said.
“It may seem spacious, but we have a limited amount of interior space and we have to allocate that to the uses that are in the best interests of all City residents and that best meet the development needs of Mars DevCo, including the industrial area between the City and Ares Port,” Wu said.
Jackson also asked whether the City would reconsider allowing private individuals to lease space in underused canteens for uses such as coffee shops and restaurants serving light fare in the way that Geryon, Ius and Melas chasmata have done.
“We have no plans at this time to allocate space for any kind of restaurant,” Wu said. “The City canteens provide a wide variety of meals and beverages to meet every need. Any resident can walk into any canteen and be served food or drinks.”
Third-section resident Dakota Santorini, a structural engineer, asked if the city would offer more flexibility in hab designs or use designs that are more easily modified for residents with growing families.
“The third-section habs provide more space, but we’ll need to change things around when the twin girls show up in January and meet their older brother,” Santorini said. “It would make it easier, if the habs provided a larger space that could be changed using modular walls.”
Standard designs and elements make it easier for the City to ensure that there will be adequate living space for at least five annos ahead, Wu said. In addition, standard layouts simplify construction.
“Larger rooms would also simplify construction and provide more options at the same time. It might seem that on this issue the City is more guided by inertia than necessity,” Santorini said, drawing applause from the audience in the Council Hall.
Martian mariners sail through Halloween
Sea dragons and green sailors take over Melas
MELAS CHASMA, Oct. 31 - Mariners of all ages sailed on the winds of imagination across the ancient seas of Mars in Monday evening’s celebration of the old Earth festival of Halloween here.
Some came as sailors, some as pirates and others with green masks fitted with tusks to pose as Thark mariners in a tribute to the old “Barsoom” books. Still others took a more fanciful turn, dressing as sea dragons of all kinds.
The festival began with a parade through the winding corridors of Melas’s interconnected domes that spread out across the chasma floor at the foot of the north wall that rises 6 km above the city and stopped with drink, snacks and sweets in the Melas Community Dome..
“This year, we picked a nautical theme to imagine what our home looked like when it was covered by a few kilometers of water a few billions years back,” Melas Councillor Bryce Margate said. “We chose a route that follows the winding aquaculture stream so we’d have the fish swimming next to us.”
Halloween, which originally marked the end of harvest and the beginning of winter for Celtic people on islands in Earth’s North Atlantic Ocean, came to Melas as a fanciful celebration for children and adults to dress up in creative costumes and play make believe.
The festival was traditionally held on the last day of October, but here on Mars the tenth month ends on the 47th sol rather than the 31st day due to Mars longer year. But popular sentiment has kept it on the 31st.
Some of the residents along the route handed out snacks and sweets to the children in honor of the Halloween tradition.
Four arms for hard workers
Residents showed a great deal of creativity with their costumes, some families posing as crews for their imaginary sailing ships.
“We named our ship the Eos, after Eos Chasma,” said 8-annos-old (15 years) Capri Ribas, dressed in a blue sailor’s suit along with her younger brothers Tad and Sergi and her parents Lisabette and Jordi, aquaculture and agriculture specialists, respectively.
“It’s fun thinking about sailing a few thousand kilometers through Corprates and Eos chasmas and then north out to the great sea,” Capri said. “I can’t imagine what the endless sea would even look like.”
“Tad and Sergi wanted to be sea dragons at first, then pirates and settled on sailors,” said Lisabette Ribas. “I like to think about what sea creatures and fish could have lived here when the sea flowed into the Valley. But then, that’s kind of my job, maybe I should have been a sea bird instead.”
The aquaculture stream feeds into a main pond that abuts the Bottom of the Sea cantina, which was the final stop for many participants, particularly the pirates, Thark mariners and sea dragons.
The cantina adjoins the largest aquaculture pond and fish swim around and partly above the main room, whose walls are decorated with murals of the ancient seas complete and sailing ships.
The Bottom of the Sea hosted a costume contest for adults with the winner a very realistic Thark mariner, with spare arms that moved and a sea dragon, whose tail bumped other celebrants with every turn.
“The winners put a lot of work into their costumes,” Margate said. “And the kids are all having a great time, eating too much sweets, but it all helps to bring the community together.”
While the contest was underway, cantina manager Leda Hadar took a break to day dream a little.
“It’s a lot of fun to sit here and pretend I’ve just sailed in to port,” said Hadar, wearing a green thark costume with four arms and tusks that curved along her cheeks. “The four arms come in handy because we’re going to pour a lot of drinks this evening.”
Calendar
Go Drink Tea
City Engineer Shigeru Kashira and his wife, nutritionist Asana Kashira, invite residents to share tea with them in the open-air team room they’ve built in the Japanese-style garden beside the new koi pond in Hab 3.
The Kashiras are offering tea Saturday on the hour from 10:00 to 14;00. Message City Parks to RSVP as only 20 guests will be admitted for each session. Hab 3 Terrace 1, south side.
Mighty Mums
The Tithonia Gardens chrysanthemum display is a rainbow of autumn colors, with great big masses of flowers. Stop by the fern forest greenhouse for hourly tours. Through end October. Habtube 2, Terrace 4
City farmers' market
Going green with veggie envy? Get to the City farmer's market. Stalls available by appointment. Industrial Tube Terminal. Saturday 0900-1500
City Strings Quartet
Quartet performs selections from Dvorak’s American Quartet. WestHill Terrace 4 Friday-Saturday 19:00
“Jezero”
Adventure threedee about explorers on the shores of an the ancient sea. Stage 3. Hab 1. Terrace 8 Oct. 41-Oct. 47, 18:00, 20:00, 22:00
Spike
Ready for some beach volley ball? Jump as high as you can off the sand. Learn to play volleyball at the new Hab3 beach. Saturday, Sunday sessions. 08:00, 10:00, 12:00. North Beach Hab 3 Terrace 1. Just show up dressed to play.
Bring a song you want to sing
Acoustic song share at the Geryon Agora in front of the Cafe du Mont and Rick’s. Saturday 16:00
Melas Karaoke
Brush up on all your favorite songs and get ready to sing solo, in groups or just hum to yourself at the Bottom of the Sea cantina. Friday 20:00. Melas.
City Social
Mix and mingle with new arrivals and old hands. Hab 2. Terrace 4, by Tithonia Gardens. Every Friday 17:00
- Merry Grace, lifestyle correspondent
Classified Ads
JUMP START. Tractor Repair. Mobile unit available. If we can reach it, we can fix it. NOCTIS 260-22098
DUST MAGNET. Won’t let the dust get past the airlock. CANDOR 286 87919
FURNITURE Printer Stock. And cushions for a comfy seat IUS 278 58897
WALL PRINTERS All shapes and contours. MELAS 285 45672
SURFSUIT Refurbishing. Fabric and boot repair, seal replacement, visor refurbishing, comms upgrades. COPRATES 297-14210
ROCKET SCIENTIST. Engine upgrade project, Ex-contract only. PONTUS 100 637
WELDERS. Experienced welders seeking space yard qualification. Ex-contract only. PONTUS 100 639
CONSTRUCTION All specialties. Some outside. Ex-contract only. GERYON 278 68034
AG ENGINEERS Hydroponics, aeroponics. Ex-contract only. IUS 278-71892
DRILLING specialists, supervisors and crew. Ex-contract only MELAS 285 13941
APPRENTICES Environmental systems. URBS 269 81447
APPRENTICES Applied electrostatics CANDOR 286 22460
APPRENTICES Construction. Interior. GERYON 278 65689
APPRENTICES Fabrics production, design. 8 annos and up. URBS 269-98523
APPRENTICES Ceramics. 8 annos and up. URBS 269-98523
SPACE CAMP. Get ready for orbital work. All ages. ARES PORT 268 00910
RAAS / GARBA Dance performers for existing troupe. COPRATES 295 45788
BALLROOM DANCING Cha-cha, cha-cha-cha! URBS 269 49144
GUITARISTS Rumba, flamenco, mariachi GERYON 278 48190
YOUTH CHORUS. Want to sing? URBS 269 13930
The header photo is the iconic mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars from 2,500 km above the surface taken by the Viking Orbiter. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
The Candor Chaos Courier, Candor Chaos, Valles Marineris, Mars
The Chaos Courier gets you over the rough spots
Future News from Small Town Mars
Copyright © 2025, M. Fitzpatrick, all rights reserved
Photomosaic: Viking Orbiter: NASA/JPL-Caltech