In Panic Town, on the Backward Moon

In Panic Town, on the Backward Moon

By Michael F. Flynn (excerpt)

Port Rosario sits in Arabia, a densely cratered, heavily eroded upland in the Northern Territories. Despite its name, it sits over some of the richest ice-bearing strata on Mars. Old-water canyons wind through the terrain and onto the lowlands, an ancient ocean bed. The dome is set in a deep crater and protected by hobartium loops that deflect incoming cosmic radiation. Mars is a hardscrabble world and attracts hardscrabble folk. No one would go there, weren’t for the archeology and the asteroid-capture program.

Everybody needs a hobby, and the Visitors’ hobby had been throwing rocks at Earth. They had booby-trapped a mess of Main Belt asteroids to drop earthward if we ever got too nosy. If it was some kind of sociopathic IQ test, like some folks thought, we had passed. We had bridled scores of ‘stroids with magnetic sails and tacked them into CEO for mining and smelting. And if you’re going to bridle asteroids, Mars is go-to place. You need less delta-cww going up and down from Mars than hopping rock to rock. That’s why the Visitors come to Mars back when Man was squatting in the forest primeval; and that’s why we’re there now.

Port Rosario always looked down-at-the-heels. There was dust everywhere. I don’t care how good the precipitators are. They say you can never see Venus because clouds hide the surface. The same is true of Mars, except everything is covered with dust. You need a broom to see the true surface. The Martian wind is not very fierce – the air’s too thin – bit it’s persistent. A dust storm can develop in hours, cover the planet in days and last for weeks. Some of it gets inside the domes in spite of all, and gives everything a rough, gritty look.

In Panic Town. Photo by Elena

Rosarians were also rough and gritty, miners and teamsters being far from genteel, so it was well to walk careful. I tried to look dangerous whenever I strolled around town and carried enough mass to make it convincing and a set of brass knuckles in case it wasn’t.

The town is laid out on a simple spoke-and-wheel street-plan. I arrived toward local sunset and took a room in Coughlin House in the northern quadrant with a nice view of the lowlands. Nothing but the best for the Authority. I tossed my gear in the room and headed for Centre Square, which was located exactly where you’d expect.

Local custom says everyone goes there first and shakes hands with the statue of Jacinta Rosario. She’s portrayed without a helmet, which is historically inaccurate but artistically necessary. The statue is surrounded by grass and wildflowers and the only open trickle-fountain on Mars. Periodically, someone worries about “wasting water,” but since Rosario is a closed system, the water doesn’t really get wasted, and the size of the “Fossil Aquifer” underneath the town is good for a great long time. It’s not like Martians are profligate, but like they’ll tell you: “Anything for Jacinta!”

Pilot House is out the end of Mercado Radial by the ATC tower. That’s where zeppelin pilots check in. I stuck my head in the Chief Pilot’s office and asked if Jaroslav Bytchkov was in town and he checked the logs and told me to try Dominick’s Tavern at Mercado and Fourth. That was the heart of the Groin, where the merchant association had chipped in to hire a marshal to patrol the streets and break up fights. The neighborhood was called the Groin because it was a bad place to get your kicks