“And the ships will be done in six months?”

  “Yes. They have practically scrapped everything at the shipyards around Deimos to make it happen, but the finishing work should be done in six months. Six weeks more to get the supplies on board. So call it eight.”

  “Eight months. To convince four million people to get on these experimental ships to then travel eighty years to another planet? Are you drunk?” The woman took off her glasses and resisted the urge to throw something at this infuriating man.

  “The mortality rates have responded better than we could hope after relocating to Mars, so it will be closer to five million people. And it is not just another planet. It’s an actually habitable planet. Rich magnetic field, breathable atmosphere, plant life, and abundant water.” The man was expecting a much worse response than this. It was a pleasant surprise how well everyone was adapting to Mars.

  “And we made such a big deal about water, but we have lots here. We didn’t bring this much water from Earth and we have swimming pools.” The woman had heard the same complaint from so many citizens and she had never gotten or given a satisfactory answer.

  “Yes, we have lots of water. At the same time, water is also a problem. Something is dissolved in the water that is mildly radioactive.” The man admitted with a bob of his balding head.

  “Radioactive? Are you kidding me? We came all this way to get away from the radiation and people are swimming in it?” The woman clenched her hand so hard she snapped her pencil.

  “It’s not that radioactive. It is completely negligible for large organisms like us and dogs and cows. Not so much for plankton or even corn. We have to use the water we brought from earth for our agricultural efforts until we can get this radiation to disperse from Mars water.” The man chewed his lip. His team had been put out of commission when they first discovered why the plankton colonies and early grass attempts were failing. Which then led to going back to plan B.

  “That’s not enough. Did we bring everyone here just to starve somewhere new?” The woman dropped the pieces of her pen and began to take shallow breaths.

  “No, that is why we’re here. The underground hydroponics are working amazingly. We are producing enough food to keep the colony going for at least a decade. The traditional method, the simplest method, would be to flood the lowlands with Martian water and wait a few months for the radiation to dissipate.” The man had carefully planned what he could tell Beverly. She had to know even if she couldn’t tell anyone.

  “Earth Co has already threatened to attack us if they see signs of water. They think it would restart the ecosystem.” Beverly had seen the negotiations between Earth Co.’s board of directors and the colony’s prime minister. Everyone had seen them. They had been mandatory viewing on Earth, on the Moon stations, and probably on the station around Titan too. The board had used nuclear weapons and they made it clear they would do it again.

  “We can’t show how much water we’ve discovered in our mines. The Prime Minister has to fabricate a struggle for us to meet the quota whenever we ship water to Earth. But that’s not important. Everyone is very cozy in our mines and we’ve already seen the beginnings of a population explosion. We have five million healthy people. They’re starting to have children.”

  “And you want me to put children on space ships knowing they’ll be eighty years old when we reach this planet? The parents will never go for it. No one will go on these ships. Most people will be dead before they reach it.” Beverly shook her head.

  “That’s not entirely true. Research on Titan has produced unexpected results.” The man wiped the beginning of a cold sweat off his head.

  “You had a breakthrough? Can you put someone in stasis for the trip?” Beverly’s breathing slowed and her nervous shaking stopped. Stopped at the promise of good news.

  “It was unexpected,” the professor admitted reluctantly. “It’s still new, but my colleagues on the Titan station have absolute confidence in it. Complete effectiveness. Zero chance of hibernation madness.”

  “Zero? If we were this close, why did we even come to Mars? We could have waited on ships in orbit around Venus without going to the work of building all of this.” Beverly looked tiredly at the red sandstone walls. Sandstone or whatever it was four hundred feet under the surface of Mars. Some of the more light hearted citizens called the new colony New Moria and no one had the energy to think up something better.

  “It is very unexpected and we didn’t know how many people we could get off Earth. Especially how many AI programs we could get as well. The ships need several to maintain all the systems. We couldn’t count on the dominos falling just right and now that they’re falling just right…” The professor shrugged.

  “We have to jump at this. Do we have a planet picked out? Is there more than one?” Beverly’s weariness flew away and she leaned over her precious notepad, starting to write out the tasks her team would have to get on right away.

  “It’s called New Corsica. It was one of the more promising deep space colonies from the early 23rd century. They stopped broadcasting a hundred years ago, but it was working. We sent a Kodiak probe immediately and it didn’t find a cause for the colony’s sudden collapse. It did confirm what we needed. Atmosphere, magnetic field, drinkable surface water.”

  “Even the name sounds promising. But everyone is going to want to know how the hibernation madness is prevented. That is our selling point, we have to have a solid explanation everyone can understand. So what is it?” Beverly waited eagerly with her back up pen poised to write whatever the professor said next.

  “We call it the Andalusian Dream.”

  ***

  “Steve, are you awake?” Max jumped down from his alcove bed.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Unfortunately, yes. What is it now?” Steve rolled over to face his brother.

  “Man, shut that kid up. We’re trying to sleep.” Kyle in the next bunk up moaned.

  “Yeah, we have a double shift with the digger tomorrow.” Kenda in the next row threw her slipper at Max.

  “Guys, you wanna hear this. They’re starting up Project Exile again.” Max was excitedly gesturing with his device.

  “Shut him up, or he’s not waking up tomorrow.” Brian from across the aisle shot Steve a look that was not joking around.

  “Max, you can tell me. Let’s just go to the locker rooms until you calm down.” Steve climbed out of his alcove and brushed the red dirt off his pajamas.

  Max did not want to quiet down and Steve physically pushed his brother down the aisle to the first locker room they reached. Disturbing the whole corridor because he was excited was an unfortunate habit of the twelve-year old.

  “Steve, they just made an announcement. They’re moving Project Exile. They’re going to put us on spaceships and send us to a new planet!” Max pointed excitedly at the screen in his hand.

  “Again?” Steve replied.

  “No. Not Mars or Venus or even Pluto. They want us to an entirely new star cluster in the Milky Way. A new, habitable planet.” Max started turning circles and making space ship noises again.

  “Max. No one cares. You don’t remember hibernation madness, the people that spent even a week asleep to get to Titan went crazy. No one wants to hear that. Turn off your stupid little phone, go to sleep, and stop getting us beat up. Do you hear me?” Steve stopped his brother from walking in circles and looked him in the eyes to get the message across.

  “But it’s real this time. There was a real announcement.” Max didn’t fight back.

  Steve let go of his brother. It was so hard keeping his brother alive while his brother just didn’t slow down unless he was absolutely exhausted. He would grab his brother, hold him so he knew he was being heard, and then worry he had been seconds away from breaking his brother.

  “Ok, it’s real. And it’s really exciting. We can talk about it with everyone else when they see the announcement. Right now, everyone wants to sleep. We need to sleep.” Steve crouched a little to look Max in the eye with less intensity.

  “So you believe me?” Max asked.

  “Is this a gag?”

  “No no no no,” Max held up his device again. “It’s real. It’s really real.”

  “We are shutting up now and going back to sleep. We can talk about this after I see the announcement.” Steve put an arm around Max and started walking him back to the corridor.

  “There’s a press conference tomorrow. After my half-shift, the Prime Minister is going to explain it.” Max said in a much quieter voice.

  “Then we’ll talk about this tomorrow before you go to school. Let’s just please go to sleep.” Steve didn’t expect Max to bring up a press conference. Max made up stories constantly and sometimes didn’t realize he wasn’t in a dream before he started waking up other people.

  ***

  “Professor, are we ready to roll out Andalusian Dream? You said this morning we would have three weeks and now you’re saying it has to go out tomorrow?” Megan always called her portly uncle Professor.

  “Beverly was more excited about it than I expected. Her predecessor was a lot more cautious, Diane would have wanted to discuss it a lot more and get a lot more details. Do we have anything that will explain the Dream?” The professor had his shoes off and was wrapped in his robe.

  “The game, yes. We have a trailer for the game, but nothing explaining why it’s important to space travel. It’s just a game at the moment. People are playing it in the other colonies and on Earth.” Megan sounded confused. The Professor blew into the speaker to clear out the red dust and wiped the monitor with his video call with Megan.

  “The Prime Minister will deal with that. We just need to ensure the game will run on the ships with a million people on each of them.” The Professor began writing more emails. It seemed like his whole life was sending emails to people who didn’t read them.

  “I didn’t think you would be able to get five million people, how many people do you have in that Mars colony?” Megan asked.

  “Seven. Seven million healthy people. A significant amount are children or the elderly who won’t be able to make the trip. Two million will stay here and the most we can take is five million.”

  “Wait, I understand the small children, but how old is too old?” Megan asked.

  “I am too old. I am much too old. I am lucky to have survived the fires on Earth and I can’t keep fighting.” The Professor hoped the camera wouldn’t pick up on his tears.

  “I can understand the children won’t survive the procedure, but are you really that old?” Megan slammed her fist on her desk.

  “Over eighty years provides its own complications. That is a hard ceiling, just like ten is our hard basement. Families with children under ten will be asked to remain on Mars and any pregnant woman will be asked to remain as well. The Prime Minister has already been made aware and is in complete agreement with these rules.”

  “And I expect the Prime Minister will go too? And Doctor Murcia? They get to go while you have to die alone?” Megan was having a hard time sitting still now.

  “Yes. They are only in their sixties and New Corsica will need them. You won’t need an old man like me. I’ve lived much longer than most in my generation. And the procedure would kill me.” The professor turned away from Megan’s monitor.

  “You don’t know that, you could survive.” Megan’s tears were clearly visible now.

  “Surviving the trip is not the only complication.” The professor wiped his eyes. “Let’s not talk about that now. We still have months before the ships will be done. We need to enjoy this time where we’re both alive and can talk to each other.”

  “Yeah, if you call this living. You’ll have to get as many people through the tutorial as possible. The Dream is challenging to say the least.” Megan forced herself to smile.

  “Are they taking to it on Titan station? Or are they still resisting your wild charms?” The professor smiled when Megan blushed.

  “Fifty percent of Titan’s residents play Andalusian Dream. Outside of the tutorial, eighty percent of them die within the first ten minutes. They love it.” Megan looked at a note off screen to get the answer.

  “But the towns are safe? We have a place for people who don’t happen to be sadists?” The professor sighed to ease himself into this new topic.

  “Yes, the towns are safe. Until they aren’t. The server here has had two tidal waves and a marauding horde decimate six city centers. We altered the death experience to make it less traumatic. The in-game economy recovered very quickly and there was no drop in experienced satisfaction. They even formed a relief effort, it got this loser elected mayor.”

  “I guess worse things have happened. I am still amazed this game is going to save us. It’s just so stupid.” The professor shook his head.

  “Imagine if Earth Co knew what we did with it? The programmers would throw a fit and need another organ transplant. Do you think they’d nuke us?” Megan snorted at the thought.

  “Over copyright infringement? Doubtful. Trying to leave the star system, absolutely they would nuke us.” The professor had to share in the laugh.