| After six months holed up in Cassinni I'm
on assignment at the largest farming community on the planet. I say
holed up, because Cassinni is basically a single city the size of a small
Earth country like Ireland or Austria; metropolitan, multiethnic, obscene
snobby wealth living spitting distance from pestilent poverty, and every
social disease known to mankind. You'd think after a couple of hundred
years and nearly half as many million miles we would have found a way to
level the playing field; but you know what they say about taking man out
of earth but not the earth out of man, and with it all the crap that that
entails.
What a culture shock Hellas Fields turned out to be. Two thousand
miles north west of Cassinni you drop out of the uplands into this vast
expanse of dunes and plains. To call it 'Fields' is wishful thinking
or perhaps poetic license. It is here, unchecked by mountain barriers
that the Martian winds gather strength in the spring, whip up the sands
and blank out the sun for weeks or months on end.
For the past fifty years those winds have been picking up less
and less sand each year which is no small part due to the work going on
here in Hellas Fields. Not that there was any intentional terraforming
going on, but whenever mankind sees an opportunity for profit climatic
change is an inevitable byproduct. It was here that Tobias Sivoh
recognised the elements in soil samples that would ensure excellent growing
conditions for all manner of crops and with months set up the first covered
mass farming community.
The difference strikes you as soon as you step out of the hopper.
The only dirt here is underfoot and carefully protected. The only
disease, except the odd cold, afflicts plants not morals. Or so I thought.
I set out in good jouro style to make as many new best
friends I could who would fill me in on the juicy gos. In no time
I found Fay.
Fay Blyth, 22, single, was only too happy to let me know she
was no provincial prood. Apparently a year ago she had an unforgettable
threesome with her best friend Catherine. "I was 21 at the time and
lived in a small settlement out east. Everyone knew everyone. This
guy was a shipper dropping off supplies and picking up crops every couple
of weeks. We'd noticed him several times and agreed to have a drink
with him. To be honest I though he was an idiot, but Catherine had the
hots something chronic.
I was living with my mother but she was away in
Becqerel visiting Gran, so went back to my place. The three of us got very
drunk and I could see Catherine was increasingly determined to get this
guy's kit off. We were sitting on the sofa - I was reading a magazine
- and the two of them started kissing. After a while I felt a hand
on my thigh. This guy obviously fancied a go with both of us and
Cath didn't seem to mind, so I though Why not?
We were all just about naked and steamy when there was a thundering
on the door. I grabbed some clothes and went to find half the towns
men there with guns and clubs and anything that would hurt. One of
us had accidentally tripped Mom's intruder alarm. I slammed the door
shut and we all began pulling our clothes back on, then I reopened the
door and said "Hello gentlemen, is there a problem?
They piled in but spent more time giving us filthy looks than
checking for intruders.
When they left we got right back down to it. I don't know
whether it was the booze or the looks but this guy couldn't perform at
all and I don't suppose it helped that Cath and I couldn't stop laughing
and pointing out his deficiencies. He ran off into the night eventually
and he hasn't been back to town since." |
|
"No
one finds life on Mars worth living; he must make it worth living."--
Edward
Iregan
"The
test of any man's character is how he accepts the attention of Hallasian
women.." -
Fay
Blyth
"
Hellas is a tough proposition, and the first hundred years are the hardest."
--
Mars
Toaday Magazine
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