"MESSAGE RECEIVED, CAN YOU UPDATE COLONY STATUS?"

I sat there, with Mia, looking at the message.  They had answered, which means they heard me.  Whoever "they" actually are; somebody on Earth, anyway.

"What does it say?" asked Mia.

I looked over at her, a little surprised.  She should be able to read by now, I thought.  I almost said so, then thought better of it, but I guess she could tell what I was thinking.  Like I said, my poker face is crap.

"I can read the 'can you' part in the middle," she said, "but not those other words.  Is that one 'colony'?"

"Yes," I said, trying to sound encouraging without sounding patronizing.  My guess is that I failed at both, but fortunately Mia is pretty sunny in her disposition, and she was able to ignore my tone.

"What is the rest?"

"Message received, can you update colony status," I said, and turned from looking at Mia to looking back at the screen.

"Should we tell them about Charlotte's parents?" asked Mia, softly.  "I bet they don't know."

True, I thought, but I started to wonder if they even knew about my parents.  For example, my Mom, who they normally got reports from.  Did they still think she was the one sitting here typing this out?

"I'm not sure how much they know," I said.  I knew I should type something like CAROL JACKSON DECEASED, THIS IS OLIVER JACKSON, but I just couldn't quite get myself to type that out.  I stared at the screen, and then stared at my hands hovering over the keyboard, and I guess my brain kind of locked up for a bit.

"Maybe you could just ask them?" said Mia.  I looked over at her bright green eyes, eyebrows arched, looking at me as if she had just made a really helpful suggestion.  Yes, I thought, asking is one way I could find out how much they know.  But that ignored a whole host of other questions, that I felt swirling around in my head, but couldn't even quite put into words yet.  I was suddenly very aware that once I sent a message, there was no way to bring it back, and I didn't know exactly what the effects would be.

On the other hand, I thought, just asking that one question, might give me some time to pull my head together.

"WHEN WAS YOUR LAST STATUS UPDATE?" I typed, and then hit SEND.

For a half second, I imagined them receiving this, realizing that it meant my Mom was no longer the person sending them updates, and then rushing a ship here to pick us up.  But just as quickly, I knew it wasn't going to happen.  First, there might not even be a spaceship ready to send.  Second, it takes a long time to send one from Earth to Mars.  Third, there are only certain times when you can do it, which they call "windows", and one had just passed a few months ago when the Evacuation happened.  I didn't know how long it would be until the next one, but probably months at least, if not years.

And fourth, they couldn't take us to Earth, and they had already decided they weren't staying here on Mars.

Years ago, shortly after Olivia and Liam were born I think, they sent a bunch of lab rats to Mars.  They raised them, let them breed, and after a couple years had some Martian rats which were born and raised here, which they then sent back to Earth.  That's how they found out that mammals that grow up in Martian gravity wouldn't do so well on Earth.  Apparently they all died shortly after entering Earth gravity, and it wasn't a great death even.  So they weren't going to come back for us.

Unless...

I sat up straight, and looked at the screen with a bit of a shocked expression, I guess.

"What's wrong?" she asked.  "Did they answer?"

I looked over at her, little innocent chocolate skinned, green eyed elf, and felt an urge to hug her, to protect her.

"Nothing," I said.  "No, they haven't even received the message yet.  It takes a while.  We should go back to Building 3 now."

So, we picked our helmets up and checked each other to make sure we weren't leaving anything behind, and then we walked along the corridor and through the airlock and into Building 3, and the whole time Mia was jabbering about all the things we would need to tell Earth about, or ask Earth about, once we got an answer from them about when their last update was.  I wasn't really listening, because I was starting to think of a worrying possibility.

Soon after we got back to the War Room, Noah came back, and walked up to me and said "You are looking at a man who has put up with a lot of shit, today."

"Why, what happened?" I asked, still distracted by my thinking.

"Because I work in Building 2," he said, grinning.  "Actually, the sewage system is having an easy time of it so far, because we youngsters don't produce nearly as much shit as the adults did, which is surprising to no one, I would think.  Dude, what happened?"

I looked over at Noah, whose facial expression had switched from his normal smirking sarcasm to something like concern.  I looked around furtively to make sure no one else was in earshot.  Mia had gone over to talk to Henry.  Henry is a Martian year younger than her, but about the same height and a lot pudgier, with tan skin, brown eyes, thin straight brown hair, and a round face that sometimes makes him look a little like a cartoon character, like a Spanish Charlie Brown or something.  He was a good listener and Mia was a good talker, so they got along well.

I told Noah what I was thinking about.

"So, you think they won't send anyone back?" said Noah.  "Well, you may be right.  If they were having second thoughts about the Colony before, they are definitely not going to have a good attitude about it once you bring 'em up to speed on the current situation."

"But would they just abandon us here?" I asked, keeping my voice down and making sure nobody else was nearby to hear what we were saying.

"'fraid so, chum," said Noah.  "It's figure things out, or die trying, literally.  Fortunately, we seem to have functional sewage treatment, so it could be worse."

I stood there, not sure if I should say what I was thinking.

"I'm a little worried about that," I said finally, looking off past the "todo" list on the windows, into the dusty Martian landscape.

"What's to worry about?" said Noah.  "It sucks, but we're on our own.  I mean, if they come back, great, but I don't think it's gonna happen."

"What if it does, though?" I asked, and then I looked Noah in the eye again, and waited for him to figure it out.

"Oh," he said, and then grimaced.

"Those rats," I said, "I think maybe they didn't die a nice death," I said.  "I don't think they would want to do that to us.  But they might not want to leave us here."

"Yeah," said Noah.  "I guess you might have a point there."

We stood there, looking off into the distance, then back at each other.

"If they aren't willing to abandon us to starve to death, and they're not willing to keep the Colony going, and they're not willing to condemn us to a drawn-out painful death in Earth gravity, they would come back to euthanize us, wouldn't they?" he said.