Penpal From Mars
Hello to my new would be pen pal! I know most people prefer instant messages now days, but the distances to chat from one planet to the next creates such long lag delays, that e-mail is the most effective method of communication.
I guess I should tell you a little bit about myself and where I live first. My name is Beth, I’m a third-generation indentured servant at the second Mars colony.
I work as an indentured servant because of my Grandfather. I didn’t know him very well, but he was enticed to travel to the Mars Colony by the thrill of adventure and the promise of a new life, he jumped at the chance to go, even knowing his children would never be able to return to Earth if things didn’t work out. Legend says that those first-generation colonists had super strength compared to us now.
Space travel is prohibitively expensive, even for governments, so there was no way my Grandfather could afford the trip. Most of the scientists and engineers who came here did so with corporate backing to send them here, but he didn’t have that either. Instead he sold himself and his future children in exchange for passage.
I don’t know what the original contract he signed said. And it doesn’t matter. Everything about those old contracts has been changed in the years since. Years added to our contracts to cover our room and board. For damaging something. Worst yet, when he died, he only had 50 years left on his contract, logically that should have meant 25 years would transfer to each of his children, instead each child got the full 50 years.
They say that all those old transportation debts were paid off years ago. I don’t know who says that, but it doesn’t really matter. Those old ways of figuring debt have long gone out the airlock though. I got 50 years too. Part of that is to cover the debt I accumulated before I was old enough to work, and the presumed debt of caring for my parents after they retire. If they retire.
The old movies they play on television always show Mars with huge dome covered cities that are half underground. Maybe one day, but right now, it’s nothing like that. Colony 2 is nothing but raised standalone buildings with an above ground pipe system that includes sewage, electrical, and everything else. A few buildings have enclosed walkways between them, but generally nobody goes from one building to another without at least oxygen and a pressure suit.
They say that the original plan was to connect all the buildings with walkways. Unfortunately, those walkways dare too fragile for that to be particle use on such a large scale, so all the buildings are stand alone.
The layout of the colony is rather random… pretty much based on how the buildings landed. I’ve heard that colony 3 is much better organized. Incidentally, there is no Colony 1. They built it, but something happened, and it’s gone now.
Colony 2 has a large dorm, which is where servant’s like me live. Its big, with lots of rooms and shared bathrooms. The upper levels are larger for families. I’m sure that made sense at one time, but there’s a lot more families now days.
In addition to the dorm, there’s the administration building that includes the main cafeteria, administrative offices and the main store. Then there is the manufacturing building, which is basically full of 3d printers and a metal shop. Other than that, each building was placed by a different company, and houses all of their own workers, except for us servants of course.
A while back, one of the companies went out of business. Ucco-Corp? Utani? I forget the name. Their workers couldn’t go home, of course. Some of the workers were able to find jobs with other Mars based companies, but a few couldn’t. The ones that couldn’t stayed in the old building and turned it into a recreation center and support themselves off of tips and fees.
There is also a communications tower that provides wi-fi access to the colony and acts as a link to Earth and the other Mars colonies. That is what gives me the email access I’m using to send this letter.
A new development is that new buildings are being constructed. The big difference is that instead of being prefabbed on Earth and dropped in, these building are being built right here on Mars, from materials collected right here on Mars. These new buildings are supposed to be additional housing. I guess it’s not just my dorm that’s getting crowded.
Indentured Servants such as myself get the dangerous and the tedious tasks. One of my favorite jobs happens to be both. I get to go outside and exchange the air filters with fresh ones. Not all of them, just the ones associated with my contract holder. I also have to clean the windows, and perform a lot of housework, make coffee and all kinds of other boring things.
That reminds me of a funny story. Well, sort-of, not really funny. This girl I knew was the only Servant I had ever heard of getting close to paying off their debt. She never would tell me how she managed to get them to knock off extra years. I mean, I have an idea, but I don’t wanna think about that.
Anyway, she was so close to paying her debt off, when one of the men she worked for demanded sexual services. She refused, so he got forceful.
We are supposed to have free access to legal and police services, same as everybody else, but it just doesn’t work out that way. She got no support from the administration. Sympathy, but not support. The story goes that one shift he was alone prepping a weather balloon in the climate monitoring hut while she was outside changing out the air filters. According to the inquest, she made an innocent mistake and didn’t close off the intake first, which caused the man to suffocate in the hut. It killed him, of course. Everyone knows it wasn’t really an accident, but as I said, some in the administration were sympathetic and things got glossed over. Although they did give her ten more years as a penalty.
All the news we get from off world, or even across Mars comes through the Administration office. They don’t really tell us much. They’ve also blocked a lot of the internet sites that the corporation employees have access to. And yes, even with a good connection, it takes a few hours for a good download from an earth-based site, but every day there are more and more space and Mars based websites opening up and mirroring the Earth sites which makes things go a lot faster.
About ten years ago, this old guy… Tom, I think his name was, got fed up with the censorship from the administration, so while he was out doing his regular duties, he ran a secret cable from the antenna, directly to our dorm. So, there is one room we keep secret from everybody else that has free access to news and information that the Administration can’t censor.
I often join the older families in that room at night to listen to the latest news. The Earth feed doesn’t talk about Mars that much anymore, except when something important happens. A major accident, a rare murder, or some significant change to the trade with Earth.
Whenever Mars comes up in the news, sooner or later someone brings up the subject of Indentured Servitude. Sometimes it’s used as an excuse to increase trade taxes or impose trade embargos. Those embargos tend to hurt us servants more than the regular citizens. The Earth reps always point out the laws against it, and it’s harm to the economy, and how so much time had passed that the original debts should have all been reimbursed… then the Mars rep always says that the Martian Economy would collapse without Indentured Servitude. That we still have servants because, like any other bank loan, they have to pay off interest rates, penalties and service charges. Of course, the Mars rep always points out that Earth’s laws only apply to Earth, and that they have no authority over Mars, or even a way to enforce those laws.
Someone usually suggests enforcing those rules by deploying Peacekeepers to Mars. Or course, if they ever did try to send troops here, we would see them coming over their months long journey. And of course, if they stayed too long, Mars’ lower gravity would make it impossible for them to return home.
The people in charge think they’re untouchable here, but I’m not so sure. How are we to tell a troop transport from a supply delivery or even a regular transport? Plus, given how many people on this planet were ready to come, knowing it was a one-way journey, I’m sure they could find enough soldiers willing to make the same sacrifice now. If they did, we would become an occupied nation. They wouldn’t be coming for freedom, but for power, or a different kind of freedom that comes from oppressing others.
If they come, and place Mars under some sort of martial law… somehow I don’t think freeing the indentured servants will be very high on their list of priorities. They would just use us as an excuse to invade. The people we work for now would find their lives much harder. I’m not sure what things would be like for us. Would things change at all? Would Earth take pity on us and actually free us? Give us authority over our former masters? That doesn’t seem likely. If anything, all of us Martians would find themselves as equals at the bottom of the food chain.
I think that if anyone on Earth really cared about freeing us they would have done something to free us a long time ago.
I’m not being fair. Some people on Earth did try. I heard there were campaigns from people on Earth to buy out contracts of indentured servants. It didn’t work though. Somewhere along the line, someone kept the money, and none of the contracts were voided out.
My life isn’t all work, doom and gloom, of course. We do get a small pay rate, well below minimum wage, that we can save up to go on vacations. I’ve never bothered to take one though. I don’t see the point. Why would I care about visiting colony 3? And I hear the Martian Face tour is just a tourist trap. The thing I enjoy most, despite the risk, is spending time outside.
Everybody on Mars is trained in how to use the environment suits so they can escape in case of Fires or to move from one building to the next, but so very few of them go outside after dark. I love to go out after dark. I will go out in the middle of the night, when all the main lights are in sleep mode, and Ill just look up at the sky. There are so many stars, it’s easy to get lost staring at them. We can see more of them here than you can on Earth, I hear, and it is so amazing. It makes me feel both huge and small to look up into the infinity above us. That’s what I do whenever I feel like I need to recharge… I can take a vacation anytime I like just by going out side and gazing at the stars.
Tell me, what is your life like? What is it like to live on Earth? I cant imagine not having Environmental suits. Is it true that water falls out of the sky like it does in the movies? What does it feel like?
Hopefully your future pen pal;
Beth Tool