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“Have you always lived in the Hirise, Stock?” he asked. Stock frowned.
“Sir?”
“Have you always lived here? Never thought of what might lie beyond this wretched nest of insects?” Stock shook his head slowly.
“No, sir.”
The question was baffling. What lay beyond the Hirise but more reaching conurbations just like it? Many were born here and they lived and then they died. In between they might hope to avoid the worst of disease, or secure some occupation that merited a better than average quota of food packets, but beyond that…
He’d known a few that had moved to other Hirises but it had rarely been a matter of choice. Redistribution of skills and knowledge, perhaps. A surplus fulfilling a requirement. Move because you wanted to? Why?
“I understand your confusion, Stock.” said Adams. “We’ve become sorry creatures, this human race. So pressed in on one another none of us can see beyond what’s right in front of our noses. Few of us at any rate.”
Adams pressed a few buttons on the terminal in front of him. “Let me broaden your mind, Stock.” He said.
The screen behind him lit up a flickered briefly. A ghostly image began to coalesce there. A disc, no, a sphere, mostly rust red with a few green patches here and there. Stock frowned.
“Mars?” he asked.
“Mars, Stock.” Replied adams. “The new frontier.” The supervisor stood up and stepped across to the screen. “For decades the colonists have been terraforming that sorry ball of rock. Brave men and women.”
“Mars is a death sentence.” Said Stock, flatly.
“Oh, once, perhaps.” Said Adams. “But it’s reputation is built on a time long past, Stock. There are places there now you can breathe in the open, and there have been great advances in the safety of the biomes. It’s not a penal colony any longer. Every month new colonists are shipped out there. We have to understand, my boy, there just isn’t enough room left live in, here on Earth. Our resources recycled to breaking point, even with the most stringent methods of population control.” He gestured around. “The work you’ve been doing here should be proof enough of that.”
“What does that have to do with me, sir?” said Stock.
“You’re a trained botanist, Stock. Mars is the new frontier and they need people like you.”