CHAPTER -27- The breakthrough to Utopia

March 7, 2109 : The breakthrough to Utopia was kind of anticlimactic.
The cavern was huge, much larger than Arizona. There were 967 square miles
at floor level but it was a dead cavern with lots of fissures to fill and the floor
would need lots of leveling. The floor level of Arizona where they tunneled from
broke through to Utopia 20 feet off the floor. They just sealed the airlock and
declared their work done for now. They had reached Utopia and someday
some future generation could tame it. They could do the job but they didn't
need anything that Utopia had to offer and wouldn't for years to come. They
would have their hands full developing what they had already discovered and
tamed.
In the next year the space ships would continue to arrive and bring with
them more people, more equipment, more businesses. Tim had a hunch that
Arizona, Mars would begin to look a lot like down town Phoenix.
In the five years since Tim had become company manager The soil in
the Arizona cavern had been plowed and brought to life. Grow lights had been
installed one hundred feet off the cavern floor over the 160 square mile
agricultural area cavern. Ranch experts had been brought in and 20 square
miles had been dedicated to raising swine, goats and sheep. Fruit and
evergreen trees dotted the land. A new farm manager had been brought in to
grow alfalfa, wheat, barley and oats on another ten square miles of the surface.
Abner did not want to give up his little farm in the old company cavern so he still
produced eggs, rabbits, poultry, fruit and vegetables there. The growing
number of householders who now had kitchens and preferred to prepare their
own meals also preferred to obtain their food from Abner. What Abner
produced was minuscule to what the new farm manager was raising on the
acreage that he had under cultivation in Arizona cavern but Abner's products
were considered superior in quality. The new householder's were paid an
allowance from The Company for not taking their meals in the mess hall. They
used these funds to buy their food at the Supermarket which had become a part
of the new Super Store . The money that Abner took in from selling his
products had to be strictly accounted for and turned over to the company. The
Company did still own Abner's farm and Abner was still a Company employee.
Ten square miles of the surface of Arizona was the industrial district.
They now had their own smelter, foundry, machine shop, plastics fabricating
plant, a flower mill a commercial bakery and a lumber mill, installed and just
waiting for their trees to get large enough to harvest so they could start cutting
their own lumber.
Near the cavern entrance a small city had sprung up. It had been
dubbed New Phoenix. Almost everyone on Mars was moving to New Phoenix.
There was a whole new generation of engineers and scientists at work
digging new tunnels and opening new caverns. Mars itself could now support a
population numbering in the millions but the three working ships could only
transport so many passengers, about 2,400 per year. As new caverns
continued to be opened and pressurized there were a few individuals that for
one reason or another wanted to live in them. Mostly these were farmers and
ranchers. Some planted cotton, some trees, some wheat or other grain crops.
The new caverns were being put to good use.
One of the new caverns about four miles out from Arizona had a unique
set of features. The cavern covered about sixteen square miles but the floor
was certainly not level. It would have been a tremendous engineering feet to
even have attempted to level it. The floor of the cavern looked like the side of a
mountain on Earth. The cavern had been tunneled into at the low side. It would
have been impractical to have allowed for such a steep clime to exit the cavern
so the crew just left the air lock in place. They drilled another tunnel out of the
previous cavern into the next cavern off to the right of the sealed cavern. The
floor of the new cavern that they reached was relatively flat. They just
continued on through that cavern and continued opening new caverns. They
figured the steep sided cavern would never serve any worthwhile purpose.
On an inspection tour Tim donned his Mars suit and asked to enter the
sealed off cavern. After seeing it he couldn't get it out of his mind. He came up
with an idea. After talking with the atmosphere control group he was elated. He
wrote up a proposal under the name of one of his corporations. He plainly
stated in the offer that he was not only the CEO of that company but that he
was the only stockholder. Tim offered to purchase the cavern for one million
dollars. He was first told that he should submit it through the Company, Mars
Colony, Inc. since they owned the abandoned cavern, but when he pointed out
that it would be a conflict of interest for him to do that because he was the
Company Manager, they agreed to have the Council act on approval of the
offer. The offer was accepted but no one could understand why Tim wanted the
useless cavern. The purchase was made with a ten percent down payment and
payments for 30 years at seven percent interest.
Since there were so many people wanting title to the land they lived on
Tim decided to have a couple with Real Estate appraisal experience start
appraising the property that people occupied and setting a price for purchasing
the real estate. The bank had agreed to make thirty year mortgages with ten
percent down at 7% interest. The first applicant was Abner Jacobs, who had
recently formed a new closed corporation with the three couples who worked
the farm as the only other stockholders. The Company was called Paradise
Farms, Inc. They wanted to buy the entire Government cavern and the old
company cavern and the orchard. They did not want to buy the installed utilities
but agreed to give The Company access to them. The appraisal came in at
only eight million dollars and Abner jumped at it. He transferred $800,000 from
their corporate bank account to Mars Colony, Inc and all the principals signed
the mortgage papers. From then on when you crossed from Paradise to the old
area you encountered a new sign that read “Welcome to Paradise Farms.”
Hour Glass, Inc. was the next company that wanted to purchase the
land that they leased from the company. Unlike Abner's farm they had been
private a enterprise business since Inception, it is just that had leased their land
from the company. The appraisers were instructed to appraise the value of the
raw land only and not the crops and improvements which had been installed by
the tenants. Their appraisal for just the land came back at 26 million dollars and
Hour Glass, Inc. opted to buy it. They could have paid all cash by this time but
took the mortgage anyway.
Many of the factory managers of production facilities located in New
Phoenix quickly formed new corporations some were closed corporations and
some were traded on the over the counter exchange operated by Paul
Silverman. They obtained appraisals and in all cases the corporations bought
the businesses, land, buildings, machinery and equipment. A couple of them
had thought appraisals had come back a little on the high side and had ask for
a hearing. The two attorney's would plead the case before a committee
designated by the Council and the Committee would render a verdict. They
usually split the difference and everybody had thought they had won the case.
After attorney fees they had both lost.