Free Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) by Gavin E Parker Page A

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    Sat plumb in
the middle of its own private hundred and twenty metre dome, Charles Venkdt’s house looked like something from the home
planet.  Surrounded by lawns and even trees, here was a little bit of
Earth on Mars.  The house itself was large but functional.  Venkdt
didn’t have time for ostentation.  He was about doing things, achieving
goals and finding solutions.  It showed in the design of his house and it
showed in his work.
    Venkdt was of
the fifth generation of his family working at the top of the company which bore
his name.  His great-great-grandfather, Alexander Venkdt, had
founded the company in 2094 and marshalled it into one of the great global
players.  His grandfather’s stewardship of the family business had been
awarded to him for his involvement in the company’s biggest and boldest gamble;
the commercial exploitation of Mars.  In 2143 Venkdt Corp was the first
company to send a human expedition to Mars, and within five years of that
Venkdt had a permanent base on the planet which had been growing ever
since.  In the first few years growth was slow and interdependent with the
USAN Research Center , which had been established
twenty-two years before and had a permanent but rotating staff of around
thirty people.
    Around twenty
years after the base was established expansion really started to take
off.  Deuterium and other precious minerals were being extracted in ever-larger
amounts and sent back to the home planet.  The early camps were expanding
into something much more comfortable than the original squat cylinders
connected by tubes.  The new buildings by that time were totally
fabricated on Mars, made with Martian bricks and built largely below surface
level as protection against the low atmospheric pressure and cold.  All
buildings had to be sealed against the exterior low pressure of seven or so
millibars, not much more than an absolute vacuum for practical purposes. 
Being mostly underground helped with this and the extreme cold of a Martian
nigh-time or winter.  Once bricks and Plexiglas could be manufactured
locally there was something of a building boom.  Within twenty-five
years the original Venkdt prefabs were abandoned and given the status of
‘historic sight’.  They had gone from being cutting edge, wave of the
future habitation to museum pieces in less than a quarter of a century.
    By 2180 Venkdt’s Martian operation dwarfed the USAN Research Center and expansion was continuing apace.  In the
first few decades of operation all Venkdt personnel eventually returned to
Earth after serving terms of two, four, six or eight years.  Their pay was
very good and there was little opportunity to spend it on a frontier
planet.  Business was booming and Venkdt Mars was one of Venkdt Corp’s
most profitable divisions.  As the operation expanded in terms of people
and buildings some personnel chose to stay beyond even eight years.
    The first
humans born on Mars had come in the early days, but they had quickly returned
to Earth with their parents soon after.  Mars, it seemed, was no place to
raise a kid.  Over time this returning to the home planet became less of
an obvious choice.  Starting in the 2170s, when the total population was
around fifteen thousand, some families opted to stay on Mars.  There were
building projects for homes that, unlike the previous Venkdt billets, could be
bought by their occupants.  Soon the ratio of natural born Martians to
transients started to shift, ever so slightly at first but accelerating over
time.  By the end of the century more than half of the population was
Martian born, with some of them being second or third generation.
    Charles
Venkdt himself had shipped out to Mars at the age of eighteen in 2185, and had
never been back to Earth since.  He had always been fascinated with the
planet and his family’s interest in it.  And, in truth, he had wanted to
get out from the shadow of his father.  This didn’t, of course,