From Valles Marineris, a Twelve-Minute Answer to a Water Question

VALLES MARINERIS, Mars — The reply took a little under twelve minutes to cross the gulf each way, and when it arrived it was less a message than a rebuke of easy comparisons. Asked by Earth desks how a settlement of roughly 50,000 rations water on a world with none to spare, the colony's utilities lead sent back figures that made terrestrial households wince: every drop here is reclaimed and reused an average of nine times before it is retired to agriculture. "We do not have the luxury of a bad year," the dispatch read. Colony administrator relay confirmed the settlement recycles at rates no Earth megacity approaches, though officials cautioned the comparison is unfair — Mars was engineered scarce from the first shovel, while Earth is learning scarcity late and unwillingly. The one-way delay, a little under twelve minutes now, widens week by week as the planets draw apart. The advice, when it reaches Earth, is already old. It is also, the colonists note dryly, still correct.