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(The Veronica Bradwell House is an important location in The White Elephant of Panschin. Odessa Moon talks about the house’s design and how it takes advantage of Mars’ unique atmosphere.)

The White Elephant is located in Dome Two, formerly the most splendid and wealthy area of Panschin. It is not far from Dome Two’s small business district.

It is a graceful, elegant house whitewashed to a sparkling white. It is two stories high, with a rooftop terrace that extends across the entire roof. The rooftop terrace has a balustrade that is styled to look like a Mansard roof in pink and gray striped tile. This is as useless an ornamental element in Panschin as can be imagined as there is no weather under a dome. The balustrade is topped off with lacy wrought iron, very expensive, but also useful as it keeps people from climbing over the rooftop or falling off the terrace. The house actually has shutters, large gray ones trimmed out in a darker gray with pink edging, another completely useless touch and symbol of conspicuous consumption.

The house has a center with a wing on either side. The main, wide gravel pathway leads to a big set of double doors with sidelights opening into a grand hallway with a sweeping double staircase leading to the upstairs and a continuation of the staircase leading to the below ground levels. This part is slightly less grand but it serves to allow more natural light to flood both lower levels. This atrium is open to the dome far above, since there is no weather inside a dome. The open rooftop allows light to flood down inside the house. In the winter, when the dome gets colder because of the sub-zero temperatures outside, there are large covers that can be installed to close up the open rooftop.

As is common in Dome Two and throughout Panschin, all buildings have extensive sections below grade. The White Elephant, like most of the grand mansions in Dome Two, has two stories above ground (plus the terrace) and two more floors below ground, lit by narrow light shafts with windows into the rooms.

Belowground, the first subbasement is for mechanicals and other services, extra rooms for overflow, storage, etc. The second subbasement is for more storage plus servants’ rooms. The White Elephant doesn’t have staff anymore. You never put servant’s quarters aboveground in Panschin as the higher up you are, the better. The second subbasement contains the storage room that has the trapdoor leading to the tunnels still further below. This ties the White Elephant into a maze of underground tunnels. The trapdoor is always left closed since it’s a safety hazard.

Above ground, there is the central atrium with the grand double staircase sweeping up to the second floor and then up to the rooftop terrace. The rooftop terrace extends across the entire building. There is a large open skylight in the center of the two staircases, allowing daylight to flood the interior hallway and thus much of the two wings, as well as the central hallway below ground. The skylight covers the entire footprint of the entry hall, making this space an atrium.

There is a symmetrical wing on each side of the center unit, two stories high. The first floor contains on one side the grand, formal ballroom, taking up most of the wing. It is lined with big windows on all three sides, with transoms over the doorways leading into this space. This is the space used for parties and gallery showings. This space is decorated mainly with the paintings provided by the PanU Artists’ Collective.

On the other side is the dining room, kitchen, parlor, library, and music room. There is a bathroom tucked in there somewhere on each side. The library doesn’t have many books anymore. Wherever Neza and Veronica could, they removed and sold furnishings.

On the second floor, each wing contains six bedrooms with a bathroom on each side to be shared by the tenants of that side (considered very elegant and luxurious for Panschin when the house was built). On the side over the ballroom (the right side), the six bedrooms are fully furnished with solid, old fashioned, sadly out dated furniture, drapes, etc. A nice, although amateur landscape or other painting is hanging in each room. Shelby painted them while in high school.

The opposite wing also has six bedrooms. Three of them are completely empty, stripped of everything that could be sold. The other three bedrooms are occupied by Aunt Neza, Veronica and Shelby, and Florence and Lulu.

Aunt Neza gets a bedroom of her own because of her age, status as the lease holder, position in the family, and she snores.

Veronica and Shelby share a room, with two narrow beds, old dressers, etc. Florence and Lulu share a room as well, similar in most respects.

When Veronica and Dean were married, they moved into the White Elephant with auntie Neza as it was close and convenient to Panschin University. They shared a room in the other wing, now used for guests, because it gave them more privacy and they didn’t have to share a bathroom with Auntie Neza. Veronica and Dean spent much of their free time exploring Dome Two. After their divorce, Veronica moved to the other wing as it was more practical to use only one bathroom, and less lighting and cleaning was needed. When Shelby moved in, she shared with Veronica.

The rooftop terrace has some furniture but not much. There are a few potted limon trees but not nearly as much terrace gardening as you would expect because Veronica cannot afford to buy the pots or the topsoil.

At one end of the terrace, roped off, is Shelby’s studio. It consists of her easel, an old dresser to hold her supplies, and a chair. She paints here because of the odor of the paint and because the light is the best in the house (and free).

The White Elephant is keep whitewashed to increase the light reflected upon the surrounding area. The ceilings are all white as well, as are all the interior walls. Shelby stenciled decorative borders throughout the bedrooms. Each door has a transom for additional light and ventilation. All the exterior doors have transoms and sidelights.

The skylight in the atrium floods the stairwell all the way down to the second subfloor level with light. In addition, the hallways are lit with deck prisms. These are heavy faceted glass insets, set flush with the terrace roof but with the faceted side protruding from the ceiling in the hallway. This sheds additional light into the hallways, which would otherwise be very dark.

In addition, there are more deck prisms set into the hallway floors to bring some light to the first floor. There are even a few deck prisms set into the first floor’s floors to light the first underground level. There are several light shafts (long, narrow mirrored chases hidden within the walls) that bring light to the interior spaces in the first subfloor. They extend all the way down from the rooftop. Each light shaft is topped with a flush mounted, large deck prism.

The White Elephant is very well lit. Its construction took advantage of all the daylighting techniques so that free sunlight (what comes in through the glassteel dome) is utilized most effectively. It was and is wired for electricity. However, electric lights are expensive so Veronica and Neza tend to use rush lights, candles, and lanterns like much poorer people would.

If they aren’t hosting a function or guests, those expensive lights get turned off. Veronica and Professor Vitebskin routinely argue over the use of electricity for gallery showings. He’s of the opinion that she should provide (and pay for) electricity for the benefit of the art. She’s of the opinion that if he wants expensive electric lights, the PanU Artists’ Collective can well pay for them.

Lulu and Florence moved in because they wanted to live closer to nursing school at PCC. They pay part of their rent, as is standard in much of Panschin, with housekeeping. In every dome other than Dome Six, every single surface has to be regularly swept, mopped, or dusted clean of terraformers. This includes rugs and drapes as well as walls, windows, ceilings, and furniture. Floors stay relatively clean where people walk. Dome Six has electricity coursing through every building, keeping them, although not their furnishings, clean of terraformers.

A mansion like the White Elephant would normally have a staff of servants, including a cook and her minions, a housekeeper overseeing the house as a whole, a number of maids doing the heavy work, along with a man or two to do the outside gardening and upkeep. The entire staff was let go when Simon Bradwell’s embezzlement empire collapsed. Veronica, Shelby, Lulu, and Florence do all the work themselves, another reason to remove and sell furnishings since if they’re not there, they don’t have to be cleaned on a near-daily basis. Empty rooms can be swept down faster. The PanU Artists’ Collective provides free labor on a regular basis, allowing Veronica to keep the outside of the White Elephant clean of terraformers. Without them, she’d have a much harder time maintaining the exterior.

The White Elephant has its own tiny garden area wrapped around the house. The yard is enclosed by a low wall of dry-stacked granite. As with everything else, the granite wall has to be swept regularly. The garden consists of sunken beds, edged in more granite, and filled with real plants or terraformers. The beds are separated by white gravel paths that have to be raked on a regular basis to keep them from getting overgrown with terraformers. Every single bed has to be hand-watered because there is no rain inside a dome. There is some condensation, the amount of which varies with time of day, time of year, and exterior conditions. Condensation will keep terraformers alive, but not real plants.

The White Elephant stands out in the neighborhood because of its immaculate appearance. However, every mansion in Dome Two used to be kept at those high standards and could be reclaimed with plenty of work. Malcolm Cobb is correct: Dome Two is an ideal candidate for gentrification because as Panschin’s population grows, those people have to live somewhere. Panschin won’t be building a new dome (Dome Seven) for decades. In the meantime, Dome Two is underutilized and has plenty of space. If only they could do something to improve the ventilation, Dome Two would once again become the premier place to live in Panschin, just as it was when the dome was constructed.

Here’s a little background information on some of the characters in “The White Elephant of Panschin,” coming out later in 2019 from the Peschel Press.

In “The White Elephant of Panschin,” this particular image is the bête noire of Professor Vitebskin.

He doesn’t like them off the canvas, either. He finds them supercilious, stuffy, sneaky and sly. They don’t regard him with the awe that he deserves. Professor Vitebskin much prefers his fluffy little dog (Pomeranian type) who adores him as the wellspring of everything wonderful. Cinnamon is always immaculately groomed and her behavior towards her adored master is obsequious to a fault. Cinnamon, is his dearest companion and, unlike his three ex-wives, Professor Vitebskin would never cheat on his dog.

Cinnamon doesn’t like cats either, and chases them when given the opportunity. All the ex-wives owned a pet cat, as was common for their class and status. Cinnamon really enjoyed using cats as chew toys and Professor Vitebskin encouraged the activity, which didn’t endear himself to his exes.

So as art professor at the University of Panschin (a.k.a., PanU) Professor Vitebskin considers baskets of kittens in art as representing everything he thinks of as twee, low-class, clichéd, overdone, bourgeoisie, trite, and déclassé.

This image turned into his personal, most-hated-image-ever a few years prior to the events of The White Elephant of Panschin.

A student of his, Clyde Monez, did extremely well in his classes and was to the professor’s eyes, a true, devoted acolyte who said and did all the right things. The professor expected Monez to become a fine-art painter, supported by family money as he developed his reputation for avant-garde work. His accomplishments would burnish Professor Vitebskin’s reputation as the discoverer and nurturer of outstanding artists.

Buy Clyde Monez harbored a terrible secret; terrible, that is, if it ever got out that Clyde Monez thought everything he was learning at PanU was a crock of shit. He took the classes, and did the assignments, but he also worked hard on his own art, which he did not show to anyone in the fine art department. Clyde also secretly took classes at PCC (Panschin Community College) in the commercial art department where he learned to draw really well.

In short, he learned to draw what sold, and what sold were cute pictures.

Clyde graduated with a degree from prestigious PanU, but also a much less notable degree from PCC. He did not begin his career in fine art, made possible by large infusions of family money.

Instead, he began doing commercial illustrations, which he had been selling all along under an assumed name. One of his first commissions under his own name was a story illustration for the local home and lifestyles magazine, Panschin Today. Clyde got along well with the editors and eventually he showed them a series that he thought would sell plenty of magazines.

Panschin Today always provided a full-color illustration on the inside back cover as a piece of “art” to be collected, framed, and hung on the walls. They charged a bit extra for it because it was printed on the heavyweight slick paper just like the cover. This feature was very popular and all kinds of subjects were depicted: landscapes, animals, clowns, flowers, still-lifes, historical pictures, you name it.

Clyde showed them a series he had painted of baskets of kittens. These were incredibly cute, adorable kittens of every possible breed and color, sometimes wearing bows or little straw hats or playing with balls of yarn. This series oozed cuteness. Based on the reaction of everyone who saw them in the office, which were variations along the lines of “oh my Gods! They are soooooo cuuuuuute!”, the editor took a flier on Clyde, still relatively unknown.

To be honest, it the editor wasn’t taking a huge risk. Cat and kitten imagery were a regular good seller because cats were expensive, fashionable pets.

The first printing in the “kittens in a basket” series sold out immediately. The editor, visions of bonuses dancing in his head, ordered another printing. It sold out again. Fawning letters poured into the editors. Clyde signed a contract to produce a full year of kitten paintings. This was especially lucrative as Mars uses the Darian calendar which is 24 months long. Every one of those magazines sold out at once. When the edition was complete, Panschin Today released a full, reasonably priced set of the “kittens in baskets” pictures on quality paper and that also sold extremely well.

Within the year, Clyde Monez had already made far more money than any fine artist from PanU ever had. As a successful graduate, he was invited to speak at the PanU’s annual art exhibit and during his after-dinner speech, he told everyone there that he owed his career to Professor Vitebskin. He had learned that if Professor Vitebskin hated something because it was sentimental twaddle, then plenty of other people would adore the same set of pictures, particularly if they were skillfully drawn.

He finished his speech with the following statement:

“The only thing that sells better than cute animals is porn.”

Professor Vitebskin was terribly embarrassed and insisted that it was proof that most people didn’t know anything about art. He loathed the kitten pictures and loathed them even more when some of the “kittens in baskets” images turned up in the studio of the fine art department, pinned anonymously to the walls. Worst of all, he felt betrayed by Clyde Monez, a student he had mentored and instructed with all his heart and soul.

Ever since, he made a point of telling everyone that kittens in baskets are the most worthless images ever painted; a sign of zero taste and skill.

Shelby came home (the very first week of classes at PanU) fully indoctrinated about the horrors of kittens in baskets. She tore down her own copy she had saved up for (fluffy white kittens tangled up in blue yarn spilling out of a basket adorned with a fluffy pink bow) and vowed before Veronica, Neza, Florence, and Lulu that no kitten pictures would ever appear in the White Elephant. This was too good an opportunity to miss and ever since, Florence, Lulu, and Veronica have teased Shelby about kittens in baskets. Neza has been more tolerant. Florence also rescued Shelby’s kitten picture from the recycling bin, ironed it carefully, and now it hangs up in the room she shares with Lulu along with the other ones they have been able to find.

Shelby has never admitted it, but she was secretly glad that Florence rescued her kitten picture. When she is unhappy and nobody is around, she sneaks into their room to admire their kitten pictures. They’re so cheerful and happy and she wishes desperately they could afford a kitten of their own at the White Elephant. The Bradwells used to own a cat before they lost everything. The cat, a long-haired, pedigreed cream-colored beauty, got sold along with everything else of value. Shelby still misses Madame Fluff, as does Veronica. The “baskets of kittens” pictures are as close as Shelby will come to having Madame Fluff back or having any other cat as a pet.

Shelby did keep her own portrait of Madame Fluff in the room she shares with Veronica, since she painted it. She could claim she kept it because Veronica insisted. She also knew her sister would never run out of things to say if she got rid of the painting because of Professor Vitebskin.

What Shelby did not know was that her portfolio, submitted to PanU in the hopes of an art scholarship, was rejected because she had included several loving portraits of their cat, Madame Fluff. Professor Vitebskin blew a gasket when he saw the cat imagery and rejected her portfolio as soon as he saw the first cat picture.

Despite being indoctrinated in the horrors of kitten art, Shelby can’t stop herself from liking them. She also knows what the household needs. This is why when someone else smuggled in a calendar to the PanU art department that had a cat or kitten for every month – Vitebskin threw it into the recycling bin as soon as he spotted it pinned to the bulletin board – she brought it home. Shelby said it was to save money for the family and it was. She also brought the calendar home so she could legitimately see a kitten every day.

Incidentally, some of these kitten images were painted by Clyde Monez.

Join Odessa Moon in another exploration of a terraformed Mars, this time, chapter by chapter as she writes “The White Elephant of Panschin.”

Starting Sunday, March 17, I’ll post twice a week from both Wattpad and Archive of Our Own my novel, “The White Elephant of Panschin, a story set in the domed city of Panschin.

My terraformed Mars hosts a wide variety of environments and cultures. “The Bride From Dairapaska” took place on the steppes region and involved the horse-based tribes who rule it. This time, we visit Panschin, which lies far to the north in the Northern Mining Tier. This city of domes and tunnels is built on the backs of men who wrench its mineral riches from its soil. In Panschin, your future is determined based on your family’s background. If you want a different future, you have to fight for it.

You’ll meet Veronica Bradwell, a young woman struggling to overcome her past; her sister, Shelby, who is being punished for who she is; Malcolm Cobb, a man who wants more from life than being a tunnel-rat; and Airik, the daimyo of Shelleen. He has his own reasons for traveling to Panschin but none of them involve getting entangled in the fallout left behind by Simon Bradwell.

For those of you who’ve read ‘The Bride From Dairapaska’, you’ll remember Airik. You’ll get to learn more about him in ‘The White Elephant’.

“The White Elephant of Panschin” can be read as a stand-alone, but the experience (especially on Airik’s part) will be richer if you’ve read “The Bride From Dairapaska.” (Amazon link)

So, every Sunday and Wednesday, drop in at Wattpad or Ao3 and follow the adventures of Veronica, Shelby, Malcolm, and Airik. I look forward to seeing you there!