OLIVER: Maybe start with your name and age?

WILLIAM: My name is William, and I am 6 Martian years old (10 in Earth years).  I don't remember that story Charlotte told about me walking in on her and criticizing her toys, but I could believe that happened.  I definitely remember the one about me telling them that wolves have anal glands to help mark their territory; I have never seen Amelia laugh so hard or Sophie look so upset.  Well, that last part's not quite true, I've seen Sophie look upset a bunch of times, but she was pretty upset that time.  I just wanna say that I never actually pissed on the furniture, that was just something Sophie was thinking I would do, but I never did that.

OLIVER: First memory?

WILLIAM: My first memory is of sitting on the floor of our apartment, playing with some of the metal parts that my parents let me have, and listening to them laughing.  They were, I think, maybe pretty drunk at the time.  I guess it doesn't matter now if I say that it was mostly my parents who were using a home still and making, as Noah calls it, 'hooch'.  They actually made a bunch of drinks, I think, depending on what was available to ferment.  My guess is that they got the equipment for the still from their jobs in Building 8, where the fuel production and other chemistry plant equipment was.

OLIVER: What did your parents do?

WILLIAM: My parents were both chemists, and their job was primarily to make sure there was enough fuel ready for the ships that would arrive from Earth every so often, so that they could return to Earth.  They also tried to find ways to produce as much of what we needed on Mars as possible, so that less would be needed in ships from Earth.  The oxygen got made by the plants in Building 3, mostly, although I think in the early days of the colony they were responsible for that also.

They also were trying out various ways to make fertilizer for the crops, or if they could find a way to separate the iron and oxygen in Martian soil, that didn't require so much energy.  They would go through periods when they were extra excited, if they thought they were getting close to figuring out something important, and then also times when they were kind of glum because they had realized something wouldn't work.  Or, also, sometimes they thought it was working but Earth didn't want to approve setting it up on a larger scale.  That sort of thing was pretty frustrating to them, and they would get grumpy for a day or two.

I wanted to go with them to Building 8 to see the chemistry stuff, which I had read a lot about, but they only took me one time.  I think they were intending to show me more when I got older, but we never got the chance to do that.  I guess there's a lot of different ways to get in trouble, with all of those chemicals.  But it would have been nice to get a chance to see what they worked on.  Maybe someday we'll go to Building 8 and see if we can get it all running again, but I guess that would be something for after the adults come back, if they do.

OLIVER: What's your first memory of seeing other kids?

WILLIAM: I remember seeing Charlotte, although I don't remember that time when I guess I made her cry by criticizing her toys.  I do remember her parents bringing Charlotte over to our apartment to see us.  I think this may have been before that time Charlotte remembers, but maybe not.  I remember that Charlotte's parents were a lot more talkative than mine; it's like they never stopped talking and laughing.  My parents were more quiet types, usually.

I do remember playing with Charlotte and Sophie and Amelia in the common area a lot.

OLIVER: Did you ever see your parents at work?

WILLIAM: No, I don't think so.  I think they were talking about getting ready to start showing me that, before the Electrocution.

I did see them work on the still at home, of course.  That was more or less like chemistry.  They liked the process of doing that as much as they liked the hooch, I think.  It was something they could do that didn't require approval from Earth.  Well, I suppose it should have but they just did it anyway, and Earth didn't know about it.  I remember seeing them fiddling about with it a lot, and talking about it and debating what the best strategy was for each batch.  Since the food available to ferment was changing all the time, they had to keep trying different things.

OLIVER: Did they talk about work with you at all?

WILLIAM: Not really.  I did get to listen to them talking about work, sometimes, but they used a lot of words I didn't understand.  Occasionally I would ask what something meant, but the answer always also had a bunch of words I didn't understand.  Sometimes I would just ask them how a word was spelled, and then look it up and try to figure it out.  "Endothermic", I remember looking that up.  But it was hard to know where to get started, and I couldn't really use any of it.

I did learn how to make hooch, they would talk to me about that.  I think it helped that the stuff to do it was right there, in our apartment, so they could show me.  I don't know that I would really want to, though, because it didn't taste good.  They said you had to get older to enjoy it.  But it was interesting to watch them working on it.

They also did some stuff with archaea, that was interesting.

OLIVER: With what?

WILLIAM: Archaea.  "arr-kay-uh".  They're like, tiny little things, too small to see.  They were trying to find out how to make some that could live on Mars.  They had this idea that they could make methane from archaea, but they had to make them able to survive where it was really cold, like Outside.  Archaea don't like oxygen, so they had to keep them in a sealed container with no oxygen in it.  First they were trying to get them to just survive in a soup of stuff, then they started putting it in the refigerator.  Then they put it in the freezer for a while, then back in the refrigerator.  They were trying to select for ones that could survive colder and colder temperatures.  Then eventually they had to put the container in a cooler that also had dry ice, which is this really fun stuff that gives off what looks like smoke but it isn't really.  They were trying to make Archaea that could survive in dry ice temperatures, and if they could survive that then they would be able to survive on Mars.  Like, Outside.

I suppose that the Archaea are all dead now, maybe.  They kept that stuff in our apartment in Building 27, because they thought that the inspectors who came from Earth every once in a while would not like it because it wasn't their idea.  I guess the Archaea are kind of like us, left behind after my parents died.

Do you think we're going to live, Oliver?