Conflict (What Else?) On Mars

Poul Anderson, "The Children of Fortune." See here.

The North American mutants:

land on Mars;

analyze the environment;

begin to build Port Drummond, mostly underground;

are attacked by four Siberians;

kill two, causing the others to flee;

organize a scouting party to locate and reconnoiter the Siberian ship.

Thus, the nature of the narrative changes yet again. We have had:

post-nuclear survival and recovery;
mutants;
rapid technological progress;
spaceflight;
Martian exploration;
gunfights.

The narrative is going somewhere because it will culminate on a colonized outer moon in the further future.