Martian Dawn

Part 3, Chapter 5: El Gallinero

(Photo credit: hoglezoo.org)

The airlock cycled open, and they stepped inside, Emilio waving Aguilar and Dawn in first, and the two little robots trundling in afterward. The robots stayed close to Dawn, but panned their cameras around, recording the scene.

The scene was chaos. The henhouse, or "gallinero," was just a large dome, filled with crates, some of which were made of chicken wire and filled with clucking or cooing or quacking birds. Emilio led them there, first.

"In here are the chickens," he began, indicating the first crate. Dawn bent down to look at them, fascinated. The chickens were crowded together, one on top of another. Most of them ignored her, attempting to sleep, but the one closest to her opened its beady little eye and stared back at her. It groaned in complaint, a long, low "rr-rr-rr-rrrrrrrrrrrr".

Dawn backed away. "I don't think that one likes me," she said.

"Why do you say that?" Emilio asked.

"It growled at me," she replied. "And the look in its eye was absolutely demonic."

Emilio laughed, "Well, they always look like that, and that wasn't a growl, just a complaint that we haven't let them out, yet."

"And why haven't you?" Aguilar demanded. "Emilio, nothing is done in here."

Emilio stood up and turned his attention to his boss. "Don Beto, we don't know what to do. This space is no good. It is too big as a coop, but too small to be a farm yard, They tell us the birds can not go outside, but there is no where in here for them to scratch. The floor is fabric, like the walls. There is water at a spigot, and a small basin, but no pond for the ducks. There are shelves that we can use as roosts, but no straw for nests. And they don't have anything here that we can bring in. They don't grow hay or grain, and we are not allowed to cut the grass."

Aguilar placed a hand on Emilio's elbow, and looked him in the eye. "It is much like the conditions on board the ship, don't you think? How did we solve it there?"

Dawn half listened to them, while they discussed limited supplies of commercial bedding and feed, earthworm compost, grain seed and kitchen scraps. She was aware of much pacing out of measurements and hand-waving to describe the general location of a pond, a raised bed garden, an earthworm compost bin, and various pens they would need to rotate the hens and roosters, ducks and drakes.

The main part of Dawn's mind, however, was on the birds. She moved on to a new crate and peered inside. These birds were different. She wasn't sure if these were still chickens or not. She was pretty sure they weren't ducks, but she thought their bodies were too compact and their necks too long to be chickens. They were grey and white speckled, and their featherless faces all cocked an eye toward her in challenge, as though they knew to stare her down as a group, rather than one by one. Again, she found herself wanting to back away.

"Those are the guinea hens," Emilio told her. "We brought them because they are survivors--very smart, very, eh, adaptable. The only problem with them is that they don't lay year round--only in spring."

Dawn stood up and turned to Emilio, relieved at the excuse not to face down the birds any longer.

"Spring, huh? Did they lay on the ship?"

"Yes, we varied the light and the heat to mirror the weather back home. They just finished laying, actually."

"I wonder how they will adapt to a year that's twice as long," Dawn mused.

One of the guinea fowl hissed emphatically, as though it were just now hearing of this new indignity. Dawn jumped back. Emilio laughed at her.

"They seem angry," she said.

"They are very upset, yes. They did not like the trip down to the surface, and they want out. I should get back to work, now that we have a plan."

"Well, I am ready to leave. Don Beto, shall we continue our tour?"

"I am ready when you are, señorita. I would like to talk to the ecologist, if he is available. Issues continue to build up which require his input and support. Perhaps he could walk us through the plantings in the canyon?"

"We'll find him," Dawn promised, and stepped into the airlock.

Once the airlock closed behind them, Aguilar said quietly, "I think you were not a fan of the birds."

Dawn shrugged, uncomfortably. "They have a lot more personality than I'm used to."

Aguilar laughed. "More than the brine shrimp, you mean? I would hope so! The brine shrimp don't even know you're there."

Dawn grinned, embarrassed. "Maybe I'll give the birds another chance after they're settled in."

"They'll be happier then," Aguilar agreed.

"I do have a concern, though," Dawn told him, as the airlock cycled open and they stepped out. "I told you about how the tilapia collapsed, right?"

"Yes," Aguilar confirmed.

"Well, aren't you trying to raise the birds on the same waste stream that failed to sustain the fish?"

"Yes and no," Aguilar began. "When the fish collapsed, there were only... what? Twenty-five people here? As of today, there are five times that number. There are new greenhouses and a far larger galley, so that means more food waste. Also, if I can convince your ecologist, I think we should try to grow feed grain here in Terra Aurora."

"That will be a hard sell," Dawn told him.

"It should not be. It's the next question Terra Aurora should answer. Can you grow an agricultural crop on native Martian soil?"

Dawn had no answer to that. It was a valid question, and fortunately, it wasn't her call.

"Anyway," Aguilar continued. "If the chickens don't survive, I don't really care that much. They've already served their real purpose." He waited for Dawn to react.

"OK, I'll bite," she said. "What was their real purpose, Don Beto?"

"To convince Emilio to come to Mars," he said with satisfaction. "Him and the others that will work with the poultry."

"You couldn't have put them to work doing something else?" Dawn asked.

"I tried. I went to villages all over Latin America and Africa, and I told them we had jobs in civil engineering and experimental ecology and high tech greenhouses and hydroponics and mineral exploration. I got applicants from every university and corporation, but I couldn't interest the people I really wanted to reach."

"You told them you would teach them, right?"

"Yes, I would teach them, I would pay them, I would build schools and hospitals, the whole package, but they didn't trust me. The deal was too good, you see. Why would I want them for those jobs?"

"A valid question," Dawn allowed, not mentioning that it was the same question her elders had asked.

"Certainly. You see, campesinos in the developing world have learned, over many centuries, that if a rich and powerful man hands them a deal that sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So I had to show them, not that I wanted them, but that I needed them. I had to have jobs that needed to be done on Mars in which they were the experts."

"I see," Dawn had turned to gaze thoughtfully back at the gallinero. "So, the real purpose of the chickens is simply to give Emilio and the others like him a crucial responsibility he believes he can handle?"

"Exactly!" Aguilar nodded in satisfaction.

"But Don Beto," Dawn objected in distress, "Doesn't that make it absolutely critical that the chickens live?"

Aguilar's face fell. "Eh? I believe I just explained why it does not."

"If Mars kills those birds," Dawn explained, urgently, "he will blame himself, because you put him in charge and convinced him it had to be done and that he was the only one who could do it. That poor, sweet boy--you've set him up!"