Martian Dawn

Part 2, Chapter 12: "That is Never Going to Be Me."

The mess hall was in an uproar.

"He's going to turn Mars into his own little kingdom!"

"A mining camp, to be precise, complete with migrant labor."

"Yeah, it's going to be like Total Recall meets The 33."

"Shut up, Finn. It's not funny. Mark my words, by the end of the decade, this planet is going to be a human rights nightmare."

"We've got to stop him!"

It was unbearable, listening to them, but Dawn would be so massively grounded if anyone knew she was end-running around protocol and writing to Aguilar. Dawn glanced at Michael, to see if he would try to reign them in, but his face was covered by his hand, and he seemed intent on his food.

"That's not it, at all," she said, but none of her elders took any notice. Their argument grew ever louder, even though they seemed to all be in agreement. It was unbearable.

"Guys! It's not going to be a labor camp. That's not it." Finally, she stood up and bellowed, "DON'T ANY OF YOU WATCH THE TV SHOW, ANYMORE?"

The room fell silent and all eyes turned to her. Her mother reached out to her as though to pull her back into her seat. She continued quickly, "Because if you did, you would know why Aguilar is bringing the people he's bringing."

Now Michael spoke. "Why? What do you mean by that?"

Dawn grew confident. This was her excuse for knowing what she did, and it was perfect. "The show is mostly about the Aguila, these days. Didn't you even know?"

"The show is about us," someone objected. "It's always been about us."

"We were nearly cancelled in 2050," Dawn reminded them. "The only reason the show survived is because Aguilar announced his launch date, and interest picked up again. Good lord, guys, if you even watched the show, you'd know they hardly even talk about us, anymore."

"We send them 75 minutes of footage every week. What are they doing with it all?"

"They use about ten or fifteen minutes of it for each episode," Dawn replied. "The rest of the show is mostly about these thirty people you're all so concerned about. They're getting this huge crash course in... well, everything: reading, writing, math, planetary science, equipment and safety, and--by the way--English."

"So this whole thing is a publicity stunt?" her dad asked her.

Dawn's face twisted in disgust. "Dad, it's way bigger than a publicity stunt. It's Aguilar's whole strategy. He's bringing people from countries that have never before had anyone in Space, And he's bringing people you wouldn't expect--people who never would have imagined they had a shot. Do I have to say it? This is MSC'S original idea from back in the teens and twenties--citizen explorers."

"This is a very interesting analysis, Dawn," Michael asked. "How'd you come up with it?"

Dawn ignored the question and went on. "By 2049, our actual fan base--the people who really followed us--was about the same as at the beginning of the century, when they sent the first rovers to Mars. I mean come on--our colony is so small and isolated, we're no more interesting than robots. And!" She finished for emphasis, "I shouldn't have to tell any of you what funding for the space program was like, back then!"

Jerry replied, "NASA couldn't commit to anything that would take longer than a single presidency."

"Most of our money doesn't come from the show," Michael objected. "It's from national budgets."

"Sure," Dawn agreed. "But that funding has only been steady because the public cared about us for a while. If it weren't for Aguilar, they'd already be loading us into ascent vehicles and bringing us home. People on Earth had lost interest."

"That makes no sense," Piper grumbled. "I've never understood how anyone could not be interested in the Mars Colony. It was literally the only thing I cared about, growing up."

"And that's exactly why you're here now," Dawn pointed out. "Most people watch the show for a while until at some point, they do the math and they think, 'That is never going to be me,' and then we've lost 'em. They honestly don't care what we're doing, here. And that's in the developed world. There were entire hemispheres that didn't even know we were here, at all."

She let that soak in for a while. She had them, now. Every eye in the room was on her, and they were quiet as a vacuum. "The other thing that is a big deal," she continued, "is that most of Aguilar's people, both his experts and his ordinary people, will be going home. The live-and-die-on-Mars thing worked for us for the first twelve years or so, but from what I've been told, it's been backfiring for the last ten years. It just makes us feel even more elite and isolated."

"Told by whom?" Michael asked.

"The assholes who did go home didn't help us, much," Magda muttered, bitterly.

"No, they didn't," Dawn agreed. "They didn't like it here; that's why they went home. And when they got home, they were weak from zero-gravity and burned out, so not really the best spokespeople. Aguilar's ship will have artificial gravity and state-of-the-art gym rooms. His crew will only spend fifteen months or so on the surface, and about the same in space, so none of them are going to be here long enough to get burned out. They're going to go home excited and healthy and well-paid. Their villages will spend four years watching their friends, children, grandchildren on TV. Meanwhile, Aguilar's company will build and staff a school and a medical facility in each village as part of their compensation package."

"So, not so much a labor camp, and more of a summer camp," Finn quipped.

Dawn continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "They're going to be heroes. Aguilar's vision is to flood Earth with returning Martian heroes, pulled from regular people. Anyone could be picked to go to Mars--anyone at all."