The Colonists

by Keith Fenwick

  “What the hell?”

  He attempted to comprehend what his eyes were telling him. It looked like an image of earth taken by satellite. Why was it so small? Was this an emergency response scenario the training staff had developed to unsettle him and test his responses? Questions raced through his mind one after the other.

  Morris looked around and found the place was deserted. It was just a huge brightly lit space with a large portal at either end. He must have arrived through the portal behind him, and then would exit through the one in front of him. It looked like a tunnel to nowhere.

  He examined his surroundings in closer detail and saw there were other doorways, and empty monitors above counters, like the control points you would see at an airline terminal. The doors and gates were all closed. Meanwhile, Morris found he was being drawn towards the portal ahead of him. There didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it.

  As he got closer, he noticed there was a conveyor which flowed down into the floor, like the ball return system at a bowling alley, with a kind of pedestal at the end. When he reached the pedestal, a medium-sized, nondescript soft black bag came up the conveyor toward him. Morris peered at the address label on the bag and found (surprise, surprise) it had his name on it! He reached over, plucked the bag off the conveyor, and continued toward the portal. Before he’d had time to process what was happening, he landed on his backside in a grassy field with no sense that any time had passed.

  He walked a few paces and then remembered the bag, which had slipped from his grasp. He turned and found it sitting on the ground. Wondering what the bag contained, he unzipped it and found a change of clothes and a tablet. He picked up the device, turned it over several times and then pressed the power button.

  It started to power up then, to his astonishment, started downloading updates and files. Morris decided he must be within range of a mobile or wireless network, which made him feel a bit more relaxed. Then the process stalled, and an error message flashed up:

  Admin access required to load operating system.

  “Fat lot of good that is to me,” Morris muttered. He put the tablet back in the bag, zipped it shut, hung it over his shoulder, and trudged off towards the buildings in the distance. What he had got himself into? One thing was for sure: this wasn’t Mars, unless it was Mars in the distant future. He seriously doubted that.

  But if he wasn’t on Mars, where was he?

  Two

  Bruce watched Morris trudge forlornly across the Skidian landscape. What the fuck are you guys doing? What’s the point of just dumping the poor bastard up there by himself?

  The Transcendent didn’t respond immediately. The fleshie had consciously or unconsciously found a way to circumvent the sequestering and the effects of the mild sedatives all MFYers were subject to. Bruce was of the opinion the MFYers who would ride the rockets into the sky needed their wits about them and shouldn't have any sedation. However, the Transcendent had its own thoughts about the subject and had decided there were some things Bruce just didn’t need to know.

  The fleshie had started to develop thought patterns which raised a red flag and then the Transcendent had reacted without consulting Bruce or any of his key reports, the small group of fleshies who knew the true purpose of the MFY facility and had been involved in the project from its inception.

  The Transcendent had promised to consult Bruce before acting when potential breaches of security occurred, but it didn't always do so. When Bruce complained, the Transcendent would say it had forgotten about their agreement. Bruce felt he had little influence, and very few tools in his toolbox, to deal with the Transcendent when it behaved this way.

  In turn, the Transcendent was often annoyed by the need to involve fleshies in decisions about uploading human bodies to Skid. It could do whatever it wished, and it often threatened to do so, only to let itself be talked around by Bruce most of the time.

  They dealt directly with other fleshies, but Bruce was the only fleshie the Transcendent listened to and accepted almost as an equal. Over time, the interests of Bruce and the Transcendents had grown so closely aligned that it would be a setback to their plans if Bruce decided he was no longer interested in maintaining the relationship. Bruce seemed unaware he held the upper hand in their relationship: the Transcendents didn’t want to get offside with him, because they still needed him. They might represent the most powerful civilisation in the known universe, but somewhere along the way, the Transcendents had lost confidence in their ability to make key decisions.

  Despite this, they hadn’t felt the need to burden Bruce with knowledge of the neural sequestering processes they were using. They weren’t quite sure how he would react, but they knew his views on coercing people against their will, so they were careful when discussing this topic.

  How did Bruce think they managed to keep all these fleshies in one place? If they didn’t control the thoughts and behaviour of the fleshies, there would be a mass exodus once the bulk of them learnt that they weren’t going to the moon or Mars. It was difficult to prevent the fleshies from asking obvious questions which they couldn’t afford to supply the answers for.

  No, don’t tell me. It was a mistake?

  Not really. The Transcendent paused. This fleshie started to ask some questions about the mission, and we thought it prudent to close him down and mitigate the risk.

  What risk?

  He might spread his brand of dissent and lack of respect for authority and question the strategic goals of the program and derail it.

  But I thought you said he had just started to ask himself some questions?

  The Transcendent remained silent long enough for Bruce to smell a rat. He was beginning to get a sense there was more to the situation than was evident at first glance.

  OK, so tell me what really happened.

  The Transcendent hesitated. It claimed to be a logical cloud-based entity, but it often exhibited emotions more suited to an organic being when it was placed under pressure.

  Bruce imagined it sighing dramatically before it continued.

  This fleshie started to ask himself questions. Questions which could incite a revolt and undermine the whole project.

  So, we penalised him? We dumped him on Skid without any warning or induction process because he started to think about things? It's just fucken' wrong! You can’t punish people just for thinking.

  He is a dissident. We will not tolerate this kind of behaviour on Skid.

  So why did you just dump him in the middle of nowhere up there? I hardly think that’s the best approach for a rebel, do you? How do you think he is going to react, especially when he starts to bump into the Skidians and starts asking more questions?

  You don’t understand, Bruce. Our future is at stake. The Transcendent was desperate to prevent the fleshie from spreading his toxic thoughts around the MFY facility, but it didn’t want to waste a perfectly good body in the process.

  I can’t see how one man starting to break through the conditioning you have inflicted on him is such a problem. Why don’t you just turn up his drug dose rate? Bruce paused to let the question sink in. I know you must have done something to keep all these people at the MFY base. There must be some reason they've stayed in that god-forsaken spot so long, because most of them should have realised by now that they’re not going to the moon or Mars atop a rocket.

  Bruce wasn’t a hundred percent sure if the Transcendents had introduced a sedative to the food supply at the MFY campus, or were exerting a form of thought control, but it made perfect sense if they had and explained the behaviour of the bulk of the MFYers.

  I acted in haste, the Transcendent admitted sheepishly. It wasn’t easy for it to admit failure to a lesser being. It also didn’t want Bruce to know that if they turned up the dial on the control system they were using, they ran the risk of frying the fleshie’s brain and that wouldn’t do. Chemical suppressants had already failed with this specimen.

  So? What are you going to do about it? Bruce as
ked.

  We were hoping you could suggest a course of action.

  Not me, mate. I have more important things on my mind. I’m getting married in a few weeks.

  I still don’t understand why you put so much energy into relationships with the female of your species.

  It was an old argument between them. What exasperated Bruce in these discussions was how the Transcendent viewed the institution of marriage as a backward and somehow immoral institution when, by its own admission, it was a long way from being as pious as it pretended to be. Bruce wouldn’t be surprised if the Transcendent showed up at his stag do, though it had declined his invitation.

  This is one of the key differences between a man and a machine. I can’t be bothered explaining. Again.

  Then Bruce reacted with an angry start. It had just struck him that they - Bruce, the Transcendent, and the others - had overlooked one essential element in their plan.

  He had realised, watching Morris trudge across the Skidian landscape, that there was an enormous gap in their planning. They were so focused on the preparations for uploading people into settlements on the moon and Mars and later Skid itself, that they had overlooked how they were going to prepare the bulk of the MFYers for life on Skid, their ultimate destination.

  Building facilities on the moon and Mars and expending a huge amount of resource training and preparing a core group who would inhabit these sites was a sideshow. Placing men and women on the lunar and Martian surface was an elaborate deception to hide the real purpose of the revitalised MFY project, which was to upload a supply of young fertile bodies to Skid and create a sustainable population there as soon as possible.

  How would they prepare the MFYers for life on Skid? It struck Bruce like a kick to the guts, causing a moment of panic. This key issue had slipped below the radar and could impact on the ultimate success of the project. He still wasn’t convinced the plan was the best way to repopulate Skid, or whether it was morally acceptable, but he had committed 100% to follow it through. Besides, if he didn’t work with the Transcendents, they would just take what they wanted and bugger the consequences.

  Fulfilling the MFYers' physical needs was no problem: Skid had an infrastructure which could support a population which once numbered in the hundreds of millions. However, providing the fleshies with enough to eat and a roof over their heads was one thing. Their mental state, especially when they realised there was no going home, was another matter altogether.

  Bruce knew he had to address this quickly and with a high degree of sensitivity. Bruce didn’t think it would be a clever idea to simply inform the MFYers, once the selections had been made for the moon and Mars missions, that the rest of them were going to be uploaded to a planet they’d never heard of. There would be an uproar which the Transcendents might not be able to contain with drugs or the other methods of control they employed.

  Most of the MFYers were treating their time at the facility like a long, paid holiday. Being stuck in the middle of the Australian desert for months wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the campus they were living on was like a decent hotel. Hardly anyone cared they were not allowed to leave to visit family, but discovering they were destined for another world was another matter entirely and might result in a different response.

  Who is this guy? Bruce asked. Before he had finished forming the question, a text box popped up at head height of the figure on the screen, bobbing and weaving as it tracked the man as he made his way across the landscape.

  ‘Morris Thwaites’, the tag read. Morris's physical statistics, age, weight, sperm count and viability (vital information if you wish to import bodies with a high probability of producing healthy offspring), previous occupations and a myriad of other details scrolled continuously through the box.

  “Poor bastard,” Bruce muttered. This guy could walk for ages, wondering what the hell had happened to him. If he kept going in the same direction he would end up in Sietnuoc, where he would find shelter and food, but little else.

  Bruce had a good mind to travel to Skid and take the matter in hand, but it wasn’t a productive use of his time. There were others delegated to these tasks these days, even though they were taking a long time to come up to speed and frustrated Bruce by taking twice as long as he did to do anything. Besides, he had pointed out to the Transcendent, more than once, that he was getting married in few days and couldn’t afford to put that in jeopardy. Or be late for his stag do, come to that, which was due to start in a few hours.

  The other immediate problem was that all the key project team members were part of the wedding, so Morris would have to fend for himself while they were off spending Bruce's father's hard-earned cash. Unusually for someone with gorse in his pockets, Cyril Harwood had insisted on paying for more than his fair share of the wedding.

  I don’t think the transparent roof is a good idea. It’ll freak people out.

  He felt a pang of sympathy for Morris, having endured a similar experience not long ago. He had been captured too, though in hindsight, this wasn’t really the right term. He and Sue had been engaged by a bunch of Skidians who expected them to work miracles, without any form of guidance or context, to save the self-styled most sophisticated civilisation in the universe from the imminent famine which threatened to drive the Skidians to extinction. The two of them had largely been left to their own devices, wandering aimlessly across the alien planet until they decided to put down some roots.

  Bruce's memory was a little selective. He had been met by a bunch of Skidians who in retrospect were trying to do the right thing, even if their efforts were counter-productive. At least they had attempted to provide a hint of what was expected to Bruce and Sue.

  Morris, on the other hand, was headed for a city which teemed with activity, but it was highly unlikely he would find anyone who could give him either a sense of purpose, or some idea of why he was there.

  The metropolitan area was packed with service units, robots who were maintaining the infrastructure and readying the big cities for the expected influx of MFYers. The planet’s pre-famine population had stood at something like six hundred million, so there would be plenty of room for the hundred thousand or so people the current plan called for to be uploaded - a number which changed on an almost daily basis as the Transcendent negotiated a final total with Bruce. Bruce often wondered if it knew what it wanted and just needed an assurance that the final number could be justified somehow.

  Morris would be lucky to encounter any people in the direction he was going. The few Skidians left were spread far and wide. If a Skidian encountered Morris, they wouldn't know what to make of him, or the influx of humans who would shortly follow. And those were merely MFYers.

  Bruce had suggested they also hoover up thousands of economic refugees and migrants who streamed towards Europe in search of a better life, in unsafe boats, at the mercy of people traffickers. He had no idea what these people would think of Skid, but it had to be better than the alternative.

  Most MFYers expected to be sent packing for home if they weren't selected for the colony missions, and their time at the MFY facility would be an interesting entry in a CV or a conversation starter. Never in their wildest dreams would they have believed the colonisation missions were a feint for the real purpose of the MFY program. If they had been aware of this, only a small number of them would probably have made the trek to the campus in the middle of the Australian desert, even with free travel and accommodation thrown in. The prospect of being uploaded to a planet called Skid like a herd of cattle being run through a set of stock yards and onto a truck headed for the local freezing works would have been farthest from their minds.

  Watching Morris make his way across the landscape, feeling for him, Bruce knew they needed to put more attention on creating a narrative for the people who would be uploaded, and some guidance for them once they hit the planet.

  How are we going to prepare these people for life on Skid? he asked. Shouldn’t we be developing a settlement plan? He
continued without waiting for an answer. Where are we going to house them? How are we going to house them? How will we communicate with the original Skidians and inform them that we are going to re-populate their world and flood the planet with new immigrants?”

  It’s not their world! the Transcendent responded emphatically. It’s ours.

  You know what I mean. You might be the real Skidians, but the people who call themselves Skidians are completely ignorant of this. They believe that they are the true custodians of the planet. Discovering they must share it with an influx of newcomers, and learning they aren’t the indigenous inhabitants of, and responsible for, the greatness of Skid is going to be a huge psychological shock to them. Bruce paused. We need to satisfy the requirements of the current population as part of the Skidian transformation process. Bruce liked the way the term rolled off his tongue and resolved to use it again. By the way, he added a little maliciously, most of the newSkidians will soon call Skid home once they have settled in. By the next generation they will all be indoSkidians.

  What’s this, Bruce? You’re beginning to confuse me with these disconnected ramblings.

  I’ve just invented the term to differentiate between the indigenous Skidians and the ones we are going to upload. newSkidian sounds much better to me than 'fleshie'. It won’t be appropriate to use 'fleshie' when we start interacting with them.

  Three

  Janice Chang was a real astronaut. At one point in her career, she had been a whisker away from sitting atop an all-British rocket and being blasted into space, the symbol of the dawning of a new golden age for the island nation. She had completed her training with the British Space Agency just prior to the Brexit referendum.

  After the referendum, everything changed. When the planning for her mission had begun, and her training program got underway, there had been a high degree of confidence that Britain would have a permanent presence in the increasingly crowded zone between Earth and the moon.