The Terrible Answer

Seven Earthmen land on Mars armed with a leaked report and ambitions of building an empire. They establish a high-tech camp and observe the silent, grin-faced native inhabitants while debating whether the planet offers the free labor and resources they crave. Curiosity gives way to contempt as leaders theorize and rehearse domination, humiliating a Martian to demonstrate obedience and rehearsing plans to exploit the population. The narrative emphasizes the colonists' technological confidence, moral dismissiveness, and eagerness to impose earthly structures of power while tensions simmer beneath their pragmatic calculations.