"And," George added, "we could use what food and air we do have to check out some of the sites we passed on the way up here."

So that was their point.  Ann scowled.  "I'm the head of the geological survey," she said sharply.  Which may have been true, but she was a horrible politician, especially compared to Phyllis, who had any number of friends in Houston and Washington.

"But there's no geological reason to go to the pole," Phyllis said now with a smile.  "It'll be the same ice as here.  You just want to go."

"Well?" Ann said.  "Say I do!  There are still scientific questions to be answered up there.  Is the ice the same composition, how much dust-everywhere we go up here we collect valuable data."

"But we're up here to get water.  We're not up here to fool around."

"It's not fooling around!" Ann snapped. "We obtain water to allow us to explore, we don't explore just to obtain water!  You've got it backwards!  I can't believe how many people in this colony do that!"

Nadia said, "Let's see what they say at base.  They might want us to help with something there, or they might not be able to send a drop, you never know."

Ann groaned.  "We'll end up asking permission from the UN, I swear."

She was right.  Frank and Maya didn't like the idea, John was interested but  noncommittal. Arkady supported it when he heard of it, and declared he would send a supply drop from Phobos if necessary, which given its orbit was impractical at best.  But at that point Maya called mission control in Houston and Baikonur, and the argument rippled outward.  Hastings opposed the plan; but Baikonur, and a lot of the scientific community, liked it.

Finally Ann got on the phone, her voice very curt and arrogant, though she looked scared:  "I'm the geological head here, and I say it needs to be done.  There won't be any better oportunity to get onsite data on the original condition of the polar cap.  It's a delicate system, and any change in the atmosphere is going to impact it heavily.  And you're got plans to do that, right?  Sax, are you still working on those windmill heaters?"

Sax had not been part of the discussion, and he had to be called to the phone.  "Sure," he said when the question was repeated.  He and Hiroko had come up with the idea of manufacturing small windmills, to be dropped from dirigibles all over the planet.  The constant westerlies would spin the windmills, and the spin would be converted to heat in coils in the base of the mills, and this heat would simply be released into the atmosphere.  Sax had already designed a robotic factory to manufacture the windmills; he hoped to make them by the thousands.   Vlad pointed out that that the heat gained would come at the price of winds slowed down; you couldn't get something for nothing.  Sax immediately argued that that would be a side benefit, given the severity of the global dust storms the wind sometimes caused.  "A little heat for a little wind is a great trade-off."