Hugot Calvadi and the Red Planet

Hugot Calvadi sipped from the red wine, letting the scarlet liquid flow over his tongue. A twinge of a grimace: nothing yet like the complex deep richness of a Bordeaux rouge, and sour from the new harvest. But it felt like success too, and the flavor was somehow different than anything he had ever felt before, in a way in which he couldn't quite define.

"I imagine its the soil, governor" said Charles Giono.

Calvadi raised his eyebrows, and looked at Giono.

The other man shrugged. "It isn't often that we make wine on a new world. I know the taste of it myself, not quite like anything from Earth. There's some of the taste of a wine from sandy soil - from sandy, bad soil." He frowned. "There's still a long way to go to get good soil out here. But anyway, its different. The taste of Mars perhaps."

"Red wine from the red planet. Different than red from the blue." He swirled the blood-red liquid once more and drowned the remainder, surveying the vines. The dome wasn't large, not compared to the big torus which served as the colony center, but it was still several hectares, with the green of the vines vying with the deep brown of the earth, still with a twinge of the red of this planet. The thick walls let in light from the outside, the paler sunlight of this world, and he could see the sky colored a type of dusty cream.

"What sort of yields are you looking at?"

Giono frowned with a tinge of sadness. "Not good to be frank. Only around 20 hectolitres per hectare. Not enough light, and still problems with the soil and with the bacteria, and getting the plants to adjust."

"For the problems that you have, you've done good work."

Giono smiled. "Thank you governor."

Giono's farm was just the first site on his tour today, as part of a general check up on the colony. it felt nice to be able to get way from his desk, so stifling and constraining, and to be able to see what was actually occurring. The first wine they had produced, the universal smelter making material for stronger domes, the upgraded reactor, the new research laboratory. They were preparing well for the bare 200 people they had, and when the 1.000 more arrived soon, they'd be well prepared to expand further.

He felt one of the bundles of new grapes on the vines, still green and small but growing. The fruit for the new harvest, growing under the light of the alien world. The noise of the fan to blow air through the field to simulate the winds of Earth sounded like a melody now. It felt like home, home upon the red world, home upon this distant land where France had planted her flag, flinging out her people into the star-filled sky.

A group of microbiologists worked on taking soil samples, and he saw one of them wave towards him as he looked in their direction. He waved back, savoring the feeling of community in their tiny group, still small enough that he could know everyone's names. When the new colonists arrived, it would be a different structure. One of the microbiologists was Mélissa, and he could barely see the bulge of her stomach from this distance - the first child on this world when it would come, in barely a month or two more. His own wife was one person that he would be glad to see when she came upon the new colony ship, after the years separated that she had passed on Old Earth while he lived on this Red Planet. They had talked and laughed still, when there was radio communication, but the time gap had stood in their way, the minutes or hours which had sabotaged their communication as the planets swung around the distant Sun in their graceful arcs. It was easy to judge the distance of the colonial ship, simply on the basis of how the communication lag had grown shorter, imperceptible by day to day but narrowing with its steady march as the ship traversed the great stellar void.


Peace, prosperity, and happiness. It was something which precious few of humanity could lay claim to, but on this little outpost of France, Hugot Calvadi savored the flavor of success and triumph.