Chapter 44: Believing What You See

“ALL I’M SAYING, BOB, is there are people who believe this stuff and they are vocal,” Doug said. “We have entered a new age of witchcraft. Before the internet, people listened to their doctor, their lawyer, and their preacher, and did what they were told. Now, even the doctor, lawyer, and preacher get what they believe from memes on Meta. We have the most uninformed populace since the dark ages, and they are all proud of it.”

I nodded at my contact at Space Pioneers. I’d certainly seen enough evidence of what he was saying. I didn’t like where this was going, though.

“What’s this got to do with our project?” I asked.

“There are people—Scientists, Bob! Scientists!—who are planning this flight with all the best technology that has ever existed, who still think they’re working on a Hollywood script and from the time you get on board the ship until it comes back home, it will all be a production no more real than the moon landing.”

“That really doesn’t improve my confidence. Wait! The moon landing?”

“You see? Now all of a sudden, even you are doubting it,” Doug said in triumph. He was confusing me on purpose. “I have an idea. Now, hear me out on this. I know it sounds a little crazy, but why don’t we play into it. We turn it into an outer space family reality show. Kind of a cross between Lost in Space and The Bachelor and Survivor. People eat that shit up,” he said.

“You’re talking a reality TV show, only we actually blast off into space? Like that cooking show I used to love. No script, just a task and sometimes informative shit about the subject.”

“Exactly. We can call it Bob’s Family Goes to Mars. Maybe a writer can come up with something better. We can start a prequel miniseries as you pick your crew and family and we introduce the ship. We’ve got you and Peninnah as the primary love story, but we need to fill out the cast. Or crew. We’ll make it an adult viewers show. That will draw a big audience. They should all be women on the crew. Horny women who want to lure Bob away from Peninnah. You need a couple of kids. Um ... let’s go with young women who could pass as teens. Maybe we can get an android in the mix. Oh, and everyone should be a different color. Black, Asian, Indian, European ... you name it. Of course, we’ll need some crew in the beginning—also horny women—but we’ll dress them all in red shirts so the audience doesn’t get too attached to them.”

“I don’t know, Doug...” I started. I could see possibilities, but also a dangerous amount of exposing who I really was and how many people were actually going on this journey.

“There’s more! This puts us in a great position. We get the mini-series out there so people know it’s coming. Then season one, you all blast off and deal with whatever emergencies we can invent on the trip to Mars. The season ends with Mars coming into view on your screen. If we’ve got good numbers and sponsors, we continue through the landing and getting everybody settled on Mars with a bunch of crises you have to handle. Maybe there is a whole tribe of Martians the little Rover never encountered. Any time our numbers lag, we can just cancel the show and we’re clear and free to go ahead with our settlement plans. You and a harem of beautiful women, set to populate a new world. In a few years, when we’ve come out of these dark ages, we can launch a new colony ship to Mars and behold! they’ll find a colony already settled and we’ll reveal it wasn’t a spoof after all. Tell me you wouldn’t watch that show, Bob!”

“Um ... Well, I’m not sure I have TV star looks. They’re always pretty good looking. I suppose the idea and all is good, but the question is, will the damn ship fly? I’m not going to dedicate years to making this series if I don’t get to space!” I said.

“That’s the beauty of it, Bob. It’s all real. We just use the TV show as a cover. Believe me, it will be far better received than ‘Billionaire Space Race.’ People will love a good TV show and don’t care how many billions you spend to produce it.”

It was a lot to take in. Doug escorted me to the Board Room where the directors were waiting to welcome me to my new place at the table. My conversation with Doug was absolutely thrilling compared to the board meeting. Most of the meeting was about where they were profitable and where they were hurting for supplies. I’d brought some critical materials to the business with the companies I’d acquired on my round-the-world development campaign. I had parts from Japan, tracking systems from India, and an entire factory in Britain we could retool for building the ship without worrying about American engineering standards being subverted by lowest bidder construction. The Queen had even suggested a space travel theme park next to her new space age palace! We could use it as a launch pad.

“It’s not a bad idea, Bob,” Peninnah said. “And it solves a few problems we have in leaving earth without saying goodbye. A few of us are still ‘living in seclusion’ after we made the decision to enter the infinity room. Like Liz. Every so often she gets trundled out, made up to look like an old lady, and she makes a statement about women’s rights and ownership of their own bodies. Brenda writes Christmas cards to the people in the Midwest. This would give us the opportunity to cast the ... I mean hire the crew on our own terms. We might even want to float the idea to a couple of real scientists working on the project and bring them along for the ride.”

“It’s a one-way trip, Pen. We can’t exactly take anyone from outside the infinity room without a full disclosure.”

“So disclose them. Did you read the news this week? Mr. Yakisoba in Japan was admitted to a mental hospital. It seems he couldn’t stop talking about a satyr who burst into his house with a bunch of ninjas and killed all his guards. Of course, there was no evidence of foul play or of bodies, because he’d done such a good job of hiding them. So, they admitted the poor man to an institution where he can rave about it all he wants,” Pen said. “I’ve appointed a new Chairman, by the way. I’m afraid that is the fate that awaits anyone we talk to or show the infinity room to who decides to blab about it. People still believe in prayer, but they don’t believe in magic. Go figure.”

“You have me about convinced,” I said. “If we can really control the whole production, then we control the flight. Let’s find a decent production company to buy so we have our own people behind the cameras.”

Peninnah smiled and went straight to work.

I am not unaccustomed to people not believing what is true. Parse that? There’s always someone who doesn’t believe the truth. In fact, I’ve seen more of that over my four millennia than I have seen of people believing something false. Stop and think of it for a minute. Often, when people believe something false, it’s because they didn’t believe the truth. Television and computers have made that even easier because we all know how images, video, sound clips, and even the printed word can be distorted, edited, and made up to look like something different than they are. I could probably appear on television in my full demon form, and the biggest reaction would be criticism of my makeup. I went full demon on this guy once ... maybe I should tell you about that.

I was sailing around the Mediterranean a couple centuries before Caesar collecting manuscripts and books for the library at Alexandria. I told you about that, right? I stopped in Carthage before the Romans utterly destroyed it. There was this guy named Hannibal, a general of the Carthaginians. The previous general was dead and Rome had withdrawn, satisfied that the war was over. Hannibal didn’t think so. I was consulting with him on the conditions at sea, where Rome’s navy dominated everything east of Carthage, and told him how much resistance he would meet if he sailed directly from Carthage to Rome.

“Well, I’ll cross here into Hispania and march around the coast to Italy. We’ll be there before they even expect anything,” he said.

“Hannibal, they expect everything. That’s what makes Rome great. They’ve already subdued your allies in northern Italy. Invading by land is a bad decision,” I said.

“No. It’s logical and works well. We can cross with 20,000 troops and let’s say twenty elephants. I have 4,000 cavalry I can put into it. Rome has nothing that can withstand this.”

He stayed focused on his maps as I paced around the room. I paused and pointed at the Pyrenees.

“These mountains create a barrier between Hispania and Gaul that has withstood invasion for millennia.”

“We can cross them.”

“The mountains here are worse. They are the tallest anywhere in Europe and are always covered with snow,” I said.

“That’s impossible. What do they do in summer? Plant crops in the snow? Ridiculous.”

I’d had it and converted into my full demon form. I slammed my fist down on his map and yelled.

“I am demon Bob! I’ve been where you plan to go. You will lose half of everything you take with you.”

He scarcely glanced up at me.

“There’s no such thing as demons. Nice trick, though. I should have thought about losses in transit. I’ll double the number I take with me. 40,000 troops, 8,000 horsemen, 40 elephants. I’ll still get to Rome with more than enough to conquer it.”

He paid absolutely no attention to me as I strode out of his war room and headed to the harbor. There was a lot of stir and I realized I was still in demon form. I got to my ship and cast off at once. I didn’t want to be anywhere near there when Rome got angry. That’s when I decided to sail through the gates of Gibraltar and explore the lands of the Britons.

I predicted correctly. Sort of. I wish Pinaruti had thought to add foreknowledge to my character, but I suppose he really couldn’t imagine that. I’d probably have ended up like Cassandra if he had. No one would believe me.