VISUAL EFFECTS / CH. 7:JOURNEY HOME
LATE AFTERNOON, SATURDAY MAY 14TH 2270
“You said it though, and you picked it up, saying you'd take the risk.” Evangeline pointed out.
“I know,” Chris admitted “I'm not regretting it, it just comes as a shock that you'd even offer.”
“Risk takers the both of us. If you remember, you'd just said you'd like us to be together, so I wasn't offering, I was accepting. But it's all right, Chris, I wont hold you to it.”
His eyes drank in her face, her expression. “We'll need a ring. Mum's going to yell blue murder if I don't give you a ring before we make any announcements.”
That earned him a kiss.
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“How do you get accidentally engaged?” Steve asked.
“Taking risks in cross-cultural communication,” Evangeline replied, with a smile.
“Engagement is a pretty serious step to be made accidentally.” Steve persisted.
“I think we're aware of that. But me coming to Earth was a pretty big risk, Chris aiming for Mars is another big risk. Chris declared that he really wished it could work out between us but didn't see how it could, because of how long it would take him to afford a ticket, then asked me what I thought of him.”
“And you had been thinking of him?”
“I had. He'd been carrying my tent and my screamer — my radiation monitor — on his back. I now know they're not needed, but still... If you gave me the choice of going naked but having my tent and screamer or having my clothes but not? I'd choose the tent. Letting him carry them, even unknowing... where I come from, that means I'm trusting him with my life, Steve. When he asked me what I thought of him, I let him see what he was carrying. He refused to let me pick it up. He didn't know what it signified, but he knew it was important.”
“Eva's told me that the only time you'd deliberately carry someone else's tent is if they're family or really really sick. By picking it up, I was saying she was family.”
“He picked up my life, and I didn't mind,” Evangeline said, simply. “I then explained what he'd done, offered him the chance to back out of it and you'll notice he's still hugging my bag.”
“But... what about his ticket?” Steve asked. “You're going to wait for him while he earns enough for the flight?”
“No,” Evangeline replied.
“You're going to stay that long?”
“I don't need to. I'm going to carry on my research, and when I'm ready to leave, I'm going to take him with me.”
“Your parents have that much money?”
She shook her head. “It's an old Mars law. I'm Mars-born and turned eighteen a while ago. I, and all the people who turn eighteen before that fateful day when the population hits a million have the right to invite a spouse from anywhere in the solar system to Mars. Mars Corp foots the transport bill, but I equip him, train him up, and provide shelter.
"Plus he doesn't even count towards the immigration quota, so all it really costs Mars Corp is the fuel to carry him and his cargo quota, and they do like beating the immigration quota.”
“Why?”
“Maybe it makes them feel more important. We've had more births than immigrants on Mars for ages, since before Dad arrived, even. Now the immigration is only a bit over a quarter of the birth-rate. Mars Corp is dreaming of the day when they're transporting over the birth rate again, but that'll only happen when Mars-corp can stop farming in their big domes, and house people there instead.”
“Why can't they build more big domes?”
“They do. But the crims can only farm there, and a lot of first-gens don't feel safe anywhere else, even if living in a big dome means you do a whole heap of community service — mostly building new domes — so they can barely keep up with demand.”
“So extra invitations mean additional population helping towards taming the planet, and you don't stress their systems at all?” Steve asked.
“Exactly. And if the girl or boy issuing the invite had been living in a big dome, then issuing the invite means they're not any more. So Mars Corp actually gains an extra space in the big dome.”
“Why will the offer expire when the population hits a million, then?” Steve was confused.
“Because this relieves the pressure of emigrants a bit. It means that people like Chris can get to Mars quicker and skip the queue. My guess is they want there to be a big rush when farming outside starts to be possible, so that it seems a really popular move and more get attracted. Return on investment, I think it's called.”
“Cynic,” Chris accused.
“Mars Corp are good at transport, power, bio-mass processing. That doesn't mean I'd really trust them to be working for the good of my planet. Real cynics would say that we're being paid with what we make ourselves to do work to make Mars Corp's shareholding governments richer. In other words, we're all in a sort of voluntary serfdom.”
“Evangeline, what you were saying about the firsters and seconders feeling threatened. How might that feed into this?”
“What's this?” Steve asked.
“People with big claims seem to die a little more often than they should. The biggest claims of all belong to the firsters and their descendants. I'm not at all sure what Mars Corp's shareholders or board members would gain from that, I mean, the planet's supposed to be well on its way to independence in a few years,” Evangeline said.
“It is?” Chris asked.
“Yes. Seventy five years after founding, the monopoly of Mars Corp is ended and the people, through the Martian council, get sovereignty.”
“Says who?”
“Urm, everyone on Mars? And the contract with the firsters, for instance.”
“Who they've decided are all dead.” Waves of cold started in Chris's chest and made the hairs on his arms and legs stand on end. “We don't hear very much about life on Mars, but I'm pretty certain I've not heard anything about sovereignty or the ending of Mars Corp's monopoly,” Steve said.
“I think Alice might want to know this line of thought.” Evangeline said.
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11 A.M. TUESDAY, MAY 17TH, INTERNATIONAL NEWS
“I think I might well have a lead on the life-support story,” Alice said, “But if so, it's massive and we're approaching it from the wrong end.”
“I'm all ears.” Ed, her editor said.
“Martian independence. Ever heard of it?”
“No, is it some kind of new terrorist cell?”
“Nope. Look at this paragraph.”
“This is from the colonisation contract?”
“Yes. Only Mars Corp haven't had that last bit on their wall for the past fifty years. I've found an old photo in our archives with that full text on there, then it looks like they renovated the office and for a few years the plaque was missing. Then it was replaced and that wasn't there.
“Apparently the colonists are all looking forwards to independence in 2279, seventy five years after founding. No one's told them Mars Corp have cancelled the party.”
“What's this got to do with the life-support systems?”
“I looked at that list of three names that Whit Holder came up with. There have been a number of life-support-related deaths of first colonists and their direct descendants on Mars. The names on Whit's list are among the list of guys who could have shouted 'Our parents paid for our independence with their blood, give us what you promised!'.
“Except they're all dead.”
“Nope. I had an interesting conversation over the weekend with someone who knows. Mars Corp does not have complete records, and never did. Births, deaths and marriages are handled locally, on paper. Computer records were getting scrambled too often. Also, those suspicious deaths made it into the popular culture. Those names from the moon were on Mars Corp's register. People can register with Mars Corp, but there's no incentive to, and lots don't. Mars Corp know that, their total list of registrations is only about seven hundred thousand, but they've regularly quoted the Mars council's numbers of how many Martians there are.”
“What's the motivation for this?”
“Like it says on that contract, the hundred first wave colonists got a fifty-one percent share of Mars Corp votes between them, turning active after sixty years. The votes are inheritable by direct bloodline, and it's a last-man-standing scheme. So those alive ought to have a majority vote already. But if there are no first colonists or direct descendants, not only do Martians not get to vote, but the independence clause can be deemed invalid, since there are no other beneficiaries, at least none named and it looks pretty carefully worded to me. That means no end for the monopoly over the Martians' trade, and if you look at the way the economy works, its got a number of unsavory aspects.”
“What sort of aspects?”
“The currency is biological material, administered by Mars Corp, processed by Mars Corp, measured by Mars Corp, and then actually diluted with regolith by Mars Corp if you make a withdrawal. Because it's thought of as compost, not money, no one actually expects it to earn interest, but Mars Corp is able to charge people for processing it, and thus fund their whole Mars-side operation from people's deposits.”
“Why do people make deposits, then? I don't get it.”
“Because, sorry to ruin your lunch, but we're talking basic biological needs here.”
“Pardon?”
Alice sighed, he wasn't getting it any more than she had. “Ed, the money's processed faeces. Shit if you prefer that for the headlines. Biological waste is needed to make the planet fertile, and Mars Corp run the sewerage plants. Miners, factory workers, journalists, everyone, work for sterile biological material. Where does Mars Corp get it from? Their on-planet propaganda say they're shipping in extra from here, but I expect they're skimming at least part off people's deposits. If you look at the manifests from their shipping you see plant matter, but that's mainly seeds. They extract millions in terms of raw and finished produce from the planet, and all they need to do is keep the comets coming and the lights on.”
“And transport the extra people.”
“The birthrate on Mars overtook immigration a generation ago. Those people are just extra serfs to feed the machine.”
A low whistle escaped Ed's lips. “You forgot something. They need to keep the propaganda going.”
“That too. I've put a number of freedom of information requests to the government, about what cost or benefit the country gets from its shareholding in Mars Corp, that sort of thing. I might even be able to get a complete copy of Mars Corp's audited accounts, but I doubt it somehow.”
“Best of luck.”
“Did you get copied on Whit Holder's message to me?”
“Yes. You're thinking of accepting?”
“I think so. One of the obvious lacks he points out is Martians aren't getting news from Earth and us Earthlings aren't getting news from Mars. My source pointed out why, too.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Do tell.”
“Fundamentally different economic model. Journalists there are paid by micropayments on a per-read basis, based on how happy or disappointed people are with your article. You want to find a paper? Tough, there isn't one. There are people who do aggregation services, but again they're only paid per-hit.”
“What a way to make a living!”
“The thing is... I think its not a living, not really. People live from their farming. Cash is a way of getting extras, or buying goods and services, but as far as I've heard, the only ones who buy their food are off-worlders, for Earth money.”
“What is the exchange rate?”
“None known.”
“What?” Ed exclaimed.
“See what I mean about it being a society of serfs? The money's not accepted off-planet, all you can do is have a bank account on Earth, and sell spare food. Getting off planet means you pay in Earth-money too.”
“That's going to simplify your contract, I guess, we'll just keep on paying you here, shall we?”
“Please. But I'll have to farm too, eating that way is expensive. I didn't understand, when I first heard it, but there's apparently a whole class of people who hang around, wanting to come home to Earth, but unable to afford the trip.”
“What do they do?”
“Farm half-heartedly, wait for this time of the cycle when the trip is cheaper, get their relatives to buy them a ticket, anything to earn a little Earth cash. Some even sell a kidney or half their liver.”
“Ouch.”
“Outbound trips are subsidised. Trips back are not. If I'm right, you can see why.”
“You're serious about going?”
“I think so, yes. It feels right. There are plenty of people here who can dig into this further, at this end. What I want to do is see it through, and resolve it. The resolution needs to come from this end, but it needs feeding from the other end too. For politicians and courts to take it seriously, that means someone with a reputation, and the backing of a proper news organisation, talking to descendants of the first colonists.”
“You think they're going to talk to you?”
“I hope so. I have no reputation there of course, but I do have a source.”
“You always have a source,” Ed said.
“Hmm. To you, I'll admit there have been times I cheated, but I've really got one this time. God's been very good to me.”
“I thought you didn't believe in God?”
“I got told on Thursday that God believed in me, though, and that I needed to stop lying to myself and everyone else.”
“Alice, you're saying you've always believed in God?” Ed couldn't believe his ears.
“Ed, some of this is private, OK? I trusted in God from when I was about ten until my parents got killed a decade ago. That hit me harder than it should have, because of the circumstances, which were I'd just been told I was listening to demons and bringing a curse on people. At university, I decided I'd rather disbelieve in God than believe in curses. On Thursday I got stopped and told I'd never been cursed. So... ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven. I sang that at Church yesterday, and I felt it was very apt.”
“Praise God!”
“I have been, don't worry. Oh, by the way...”
“Not another bombshell?”
“Little one. I want to do a follow-up on the corrupt mission leader piece. Try to undo some of the damage I did. I'm not sure how I'll have time, but I'd like to do it. There were too many personal biases in the original one. I should have looked at transparency in secular charities too, and at secular giving, not just giving to mission agencies.”
“Interesting idea, but no.”
“No?” Alice was surprised.
“No. Jim's already working on something related, if you get involved it'll end up treading on his toes. I wanted to give you some editorial practice if you're going to be our branch editor on Mars, this sounds like a perfect task.
"Let him interview you if you like and eat humble pie about your biases, and talk to him about your ideas too, there's always a chance they're good.” Alice stuck her tongue out at him for that, “I'm going to be peering over your shoulder, but you'll edit it.”
“What's Jim going to think about that?”
“That he's wanted to make you squirm since you put so much venom into that piece, probably.”
“I meant about the editing.”
“If you try to cut out the most embarrassing bits of your interview, you're not the person I think you are, and you're going to earn yourself a rap across the knuckles.”
“Fair enough. I guess I ought to introduce him to Sue, too.”
“Who's Sue?”
“The woman who featured in footage I used while I was pouring on the venom, and who just happens to be the sister of the man who delivered God's message to me. He wasn't best pleased with me when he worked out who I was. But Simon's as forgiving as his sister when I repented in dust and ashes. Since God's got a sense of humour, Simon is now also known as my, shock-horror exclamations of amazement, boyfriend.”
“Really?”
“Cub's honour. He's just talking to Mars university about accepting a post there, and what that would mean for his current research grant.”
“So, what's he like?”
“Isn't this straying rather far from work?”
“Not if he's your source too.”
“Nope. She's a Martian I got talking to. I'm seriously running out of fingers to count the number of coincidences that have happened to me in the last few days, Ed. It's pretty clear to me at least that God's got plans for me.”
“What do you think about that?”
“I've done the whole Jonah running from God bit, Ed. Off to Nineveh I go.”
“You'd better go call Jim in then, before you go off in your fiery chariot.”
“Yeah. I just wish I didn't get motion sickness.”
“You're joking!”
“Yes, praise God.”
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“Jim, Ed says you're going to interview me,” Alice said.
“I am?”
“Yes. All about how I feel about presenting biased data.”
“Err, how do you feel?” Jim asked.
“Guilty, but forgiven. But first I need to drag you into Ed's office.”
“Alice, are you all right?” his concern was evident.
“I've not been better in a long time, Jim. Come on, wrongs to right, captives to free, and so on.”
“You are in a very unusual mood, I don't think I've seen you like this before.”
“Jim, God, as I hope you know, is good. Awesome, in fact. He's wiped away my tears, told me to stop feeling sorry for myself and believing lies, and called me back home after ten years of being a prodigal daughter. Of course you've not seen me like this. Now, come along to Ed the Ed's office. By the way, I'm also falling in love with a physicist who has views about philosophers.”
“I expect they're not complimentary.” Jim, M.Phil in philosophy answered philosophically.
“You got it badly wrong with the cat, apparently. He seems to think you ought to be more concerned with reality, and less with confusing people and torturing cute furry animals.”
“It's all a plot, you realise?”
“It is?”
“Yes. They were all set to take over the world in the twenty-first century but we knocked them back a bit with the age of chaos.”
“Errr, you're referring to the AhhCuteKittylypse?”
“Yes. Now they're infiltrating subatomic physics, all in an effort to avoid ever being caged again. Congratulations on your return to sanity, by the way.”
“You're weird. Don't congratulate me, it wasn't my idea. Praise God, instead.”
“Amen.”
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WEDNESDAY 17TH MAY
“Alice, you did a piece on Christian Missions a few years ago. Are you proud of it?” Jim asked her as the camera rolled.
“No, I'm not.”
“You were investigating a case of corruption. Do you agree that you digressed onto an entirely unrelated area?”
“No, not entirely unrelated. If donors had been more attentive, more involved, then my feeling is some of the abuse would have been preventable. But I was wrong to single out missionaries as propagating that state of affairs, and I was also wrong to use the footage that I did. The woman in the footage never received a penny from the appeal she was promoting, her income derives from specific giving.”
“You knew this at the time?”
“I didn't care one way or the other at the time. I was quite simply fed up with Christians back then, and I let it influence the research I commissioned for the piece.”
“Could you tell me about that research, and how the bias crept in?”
“Yes. I set two questions, and specified that they should be directed to people who have given to Christian missions in the previous year. I asked about the donor's faith, and whether they'd knew how their donation was used. What I found was that the Christians largely hadn't found out anything, and a significant portion of the non-Christians had. What I failed to take into consideration was that a non-Christian might be more naturally suspicious of an overtly Christian organisation, and I should have contrasted it with a survey that asked about donations to openly secular charities, and also about levels of trust, regularity of giving, and so on. I also failed to account for the fact that most Christian missions are very open about where their money goes, so finding out is easy, whereas secular charities are considerably harder to research. I presume this is at least in part because of staffing costs,”
“Staffing costs? I thought that charity workers were funded similarly to missionaries, or were volunteers.”
“Some are volunteers, yes, some are individually supported, yes. But all? If you consider all of the behind-the-scenes jobs that both demand a full time worker and are without that 'he's going to somewhere dangerous' appeal to sponsors, I would be quite surprised if all those in such posts had a hundred people who were supporting them in that work in the way that most missionaries do.”
“Have you tried to find out?”
“Not very hard. This morning I spent about half an hour looking into one charity I picked at random. I found nothing on the net, and apart from a few people who were volunteers, whoever I talked to, I very quickly found I was being referred to their public relations site which had lots about the good causes they were working towards and nothing about how much of a donation would go towards publicity, administration, and staffing costs. I then looked for the audited accounts of the charity, and found that they were not broken down into the categories I was looking for, but they did have categories for 'consultant fees', 'subcontractors' and 'indirect costs' which were a significant portion of the charity's cashflow.”
“External consultants are surely an important part of planning any new project.”
“Yes, but as I'd spoken to someone who referred to herself as an enquiries consultant, I couldn't be sure. As I said, there is a distinct lack of transparency. Based on the international transparency scale, the secular charity I picked is not the worst by any means, but it came out with a score of seventy. The mission agency that we were discussing earlier had a higher score than that at the time of my original report, now they have reached a score of ninety-nine out of a hundred. That last point is beyond their control.”
“In what way is it beyond their control?”
“To earn that last point, more than twenty percent of individual funders need to look at their audited accounts each year.”
“And people aren't interested?”
“They might be, but the term 'individual funders' is a little complicated. If a Sunday school class with a thirty members gives to support the mission, then according to the international standards, that means thirty individual funders, but if the teacher checks the accounts, that only counts as a single funder checking the accounts. The same goes for churches.”
“I'm amazed anyone gets that one percent.”
“I'm not sure anyone ever has. Also, with their accounts on the network, the only way to find out would be for them to spend time, effort and money on a survey. It's there to remind the rest of us that we play our part in transparency too.”
“Going back to what you said earlier, you said you were fed up with Christians at the time. Why?”
“That's getting a bit personal, isn't it? I was fed up with Christians because I had a lovely childhood and was part of a good church, but then my happy world fell apart and I eventually got mostly convinced God didn't exist. Every time I heard Christians talking it reminded me of my happier days and that personal pain.”
“You're using the past tense.”
“Yes. Recently God intervened in my life, forcing me to rethink things. I found that I could now understand more of what happened during that time, and was able to separate what happened, what was truth and what was lies better than I had as a teenager.”
“So do you think your different attitude to your earlier report stems from your recent religious experience?”
“No. I've been ashamed of that report for years. I think the facts and accounts ought to speak for themselves, if only people would be bothered to check up on them.”
“I think you're suggesting that evil prospers when the good don't bother to notice or respond, would you agree?”
“You've heard me say it often enough.”
“So in the context of your report, what should the good have done?”
“Ooof, I deserved that didn't I? I think the good viewers should have checked up on the facts. If they had, they'd have discovered that although there was some truth behind what I said, it wasn't the whole truth.”
“I was more thinking about those you accused of being hypocrites perpetuating a corrupt system.”
“I believe my words were that they perpetuated a system where people give to salve their consciences rather than the system being corrupt. I don't think the system is corrupt, but I do think that people ought to care what's done with their giving, and that it goes to the good cause it was given to support. The accusation of hypocrisy is worse, and one I'm particularly ashamed of. It was unfair, unjust, and unmerited, and I apologise to anyone affected by it.
"On the other hand, it is fairly easily countered, by the transparent systems that most agencies operate. I'm yet to meet anyone who believed what I said was the literal truth.”
“If you did, what would you say to them, now?”
“I'd probably ask what bad experiences they have had that makes them want to believe what most sensible people consider at best a gross exaggeration, and at worst an sign that I'm an enemy of the Christian faith.”
“How did you get it past the editor?”
“He told me that I'd earn enemies, probably regret it the rest of my life, it was below me, and didn't I want to take it out? I replied that I didn't care what people think about me, that was the way I saw it, and taking it out would just be pandering to his personal ideology.”
“Ah. And once you'd raised that issue he didn't want to raise his objections further?”
“I guess not.”
“And was that true? That you don't care what people think about you?”
“Hmm. Good question. I think everyone likes to be liked, but for me that's no excuse to hide the truth. I'm just sad that I said it in that particular context, where what I wanted to say wasn't truth but was a distortion. I don't want to repeat that, and I think in the past couple of years I've listened to criticism much more carefully.”
“I'd tend to agree, yes. What advice would you have for other investigative journalists?”
“I'd say, uncover the truth, and as much as possible, let it speak for itself. But also uncover the truth about your motivations. Is any part of it an important issue for you, personally? If so, beware of biases. I wanted a piece that said Christians don't care as much as they claim to, because in some way that justified my reaction in rejecting the foundation of everything that had been important to me as a teen. I got it, but only by ignoring an important fact about people: we can't go through life checking everything, we need to trust. That's actually what makes journalists such scary people. We have, for better or ill, a certain amount of trust from our readers or listeners, and that can alter people's trust of others.”
“Do you like being scary?”
“Not particularly, but on the other hand if me being scary means that people in authority behave themselves better, then it's a price worth paying, at least to me. Someone once said of me that I love truth. I'm not sure that's sufficient motivation to explain my career. I think it's more true to say that I find self-serving lies, especially from those in power, to be utterly revolting and I can't bear to stand by and let them go unchallenged.”
“Thank you, Alice Findhorn, for agreeing to this interview. Sometimes people wonder if these interviews are scripted. Would you like to respond to that?”
“Was it scripted? No, not really. I'd agreed with you about the opening question, and we'd discussed things before a little, but I didn't know what you were going to ask.”
“One last question. Are you always as ready with updates about stories you've written years ago?”
Alice laughed. “Probably not, no. I was thinking over the weekend that I'd like to do a follow-up article and try to redress the imbalances of my first one. Our editor told me that I needed to concentrate on another developing story, and also that if I went along the lines I was thinking of, I'd be trespassing on something you're working on.”
“That's very true. Hopefully what I've been working on will be ready next week.”