A Colony on Mars by Cliff Roehr

Carter remarked to Thelma. “I'l have to admit that I had my doubts yesterday when I discovered that about half the construction workers were women but I am proud to say that they seem to be doing just fine.” The crews knocked off for the day at 16:30 to get cleaned up for dinner. A few of them still stuck around to finish what they were working on.
    That evening The Company cavern was a lot better lit and four hundred new houses had one level of blocks laid. The crews had not made the wal s higher because they had run out of blocks. The block makers had more than one thousand new blocks curing on the surface, near the elevator. A few of the workers had already had a chance to try out their Mars suits on the surface. Tim walked by the supply area and was amazed to see the amount of material that had already been unloaded from Mars Supply Two. There was an acre or more of Supplies now available. Eventually the supplies brought in by the ship would cover more than five acres. Al of the pallets and crates had been carefully dismantled a and the lumber stacked just like any other supplies. Once all the wood had been stacked the new people would each receive their fair share for their personal use.
    Tim went to the public bathroom and cleaned up. His crew had been laying cement blocks and required little advise or supervision from him. He had spent the day working as a gopher for the other crews because he knew better than most, how to find things at supply. By the end of the day he had a pretty good idea where to locate tools and materials that the various installers needed. Carter spotted Tim in the chow line, and came up to him. “Tim I see that you have had some wel drilling experience. How would you like to be on our drilling team starting tomorrow morning?” Walter and Thelma Potts were right behind Tim in line and they invited Carter to step in front. Nobody minded much when a friend joined someone in line because the line moved pretty fast anyway. “I would love to do some dril ing Carter, I have spent a lot more time dril ing than in construction and that is what my degree is in.” “Good then tomorrow morning you can pick your team, but you have to take Freddy as your first choice because he has had a little experience dril ing on Mars. Freddy is not a leader, he's a fol ower but a good worker and he knows a lot about Mars.” “How many men would you think that I need?” “I don't know I haven't had any wel drilling experience, in fact you seem to be the only construction guy that I could find with any.” “Lets start with about eight then. Ordinarily I would say that we need timbers but since wood is scarce we can settle for a ladder and a superstructure built from pipe, and a platform at the top made of lumber to hang the drill from. By the way, do we have wel drilling equipment?” “I don't know you might have to improvise something.” Tim had stumbled across some equipment earlier that day when he was looking for something else. That evening, after dinner he enlisted Archy and a couple people that he knew and they constructed a ladder the superstructure for the rig and a platform.
    CHAPTER - Tim drills a well
    September 30, 2107: That morning, Tim selected his crew and they went to work. They scavenged part of what they needed and jury rigged the rest. They did have some shaft and a dril head, they converted the u-joint and motor from an old fork lift to be mounted on the platform and turn the shaft. By the end of the day they had tested all the equipment and had dril ed a hole twelve inches in diameter and about three feet deep.
    October 1, 2107: (from Tim's notes}”This morning we started dril ing in earnest but it is not going very well, the drill head keeps binding up and something we are trying to dril through keeps dulling our dril head so that it has to be resharpened every few feet. We have obtained a high pressure pump and a fire hose. We keep washing the clay from the dril bit with the