Finches of Mars

by Brian W Aldiss

  Armed with what he had recently been told by Iggog, he was also thinking—was it thinking?—of Noel, of Rosemary Cavendish, of her body, her personality, her smiles, her gestures. Of being intimate with her. He found he was so close to her, and here they were, talking of those things of the deep past they had discovered. Was there something Noel had missed, was waiting for, hoping for, before the autumn changed her leaves?

  One of her arms, her hands, lay on the edge of the table. How intimate that hand was with all parts of her body. Why had either of them come to this sterile place? What had they been escaping? Why? What did they most deeply, intensely, hope for: for they could not just be, like the leaves of the ranunculus; there must be something moving, deeper, something inexpressible, nevertheless being expressed by the silence between them, as they looked at each other.

  He reached out his hand and laid it on Noel’s arm.

  Smiling, blinking with a quick flutter of eyelids, she withdrew the arm. ‘“Bride of Christ”,’ she murmured, with a smile.

  Then Daark said, ‘I have a related matter I need to ask you.’ He felt his voice to be dull, dragged out.

  ‘I recently had a disturbing conversation. With a Know-All. She made several claims, some clearly false, but mainly that the selections of who came to Mars were corrupt. We were not the elite but the outcast—for one reason or another. Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘Let me answer that in a moment. Any other imputations?’

  Daark looked down at the table top. ‘There was some slander, which I did not believe for a moment. For instance—I’m sorry to repeat this, dear Noel—that you had been having an affair with Mangalian …’

  Noel rested her elbow on the table and her forehead in her spread right hand. After a long pause, she said, ‘I would it had been so. Yes, I loved the man. But he was married. I had to conceal my love … Well, perhaps not had to, but I did conceal it …’

  Neither of them spoke for a while.

  Noel said, ‘Your scandal-monger—I believe I know to whom you refer, by the way—did have something to sniff out. Mangalian and I had this project, which ran alongside the main aims of the UU. We kept it secret because it concerned—well, it concerned instinct and intuition. Those qualities were appropriate for study even within these confines and I still report on them. That’s maybe why we seem more involved with each other than we should otherwise be.’

  Daark frowned. ‘Sorry, intuition …?’

  ‘Our instinctual response to others, to strangers or to those we love. Suppose you are walking along a street. Someone is coming towards you. A stranger. In an instant, you decide how to greet them. “Hello”, “Hi” or “Good morning”. Or just “Morning”. Or you say nothing and pass by in silence. Why? How?

  ‘What’s at work? Does it hark back to the times when the stranger might have had a cudgel behind his back?’

  ‘Mmm … Similarly in conversation, I suppose?’

  Noel said, ‘I knew a learned German professor in our university studying the amygdala. He would say that in one of those instances such as I have mentioned, the amygdala mind-shifts us back into the past. He posits that the amygdala served as a brain in the centuries before the neocortex developed. It does seem we have a potential for a kind of mental time-travel.’

  The ranunculus, Daark thought.

  Noel was saying, ‘Hence our liking for past history or novels about it.’

  Her shrieker went off. ‘Noel? Astronomy is reporting something weird.’

  Ficht, back at work, was studying that mysterious globe within the Oort cloud. It was after two in the morning. His comrades had finally retired to their bunks. He had just discovered that Eris had what appeared to be a second small moon orbiting it, and had only just been able to stop himself from re-awakening his colleagues to give them the news. Clutching his head, he walked around the small room in circles. A light caught his eye. He cleared his throat.

  He stared at the unexpected dazzle from the north. No, not a comet. What then? It was close. Less than a kilometre away. Ficht could not, dared not, understand it.

  He went and roused Rasir who immediately became alert. They stared together at the light.

  Judging by its direction they knew what it must be. The Sud-Am tower was burning. The flames jutted out sideways from the upper storeys to be immediately chopped, as by a knife. The fire lived on the oxygen in the tower but died in the all but airless conditions outside.

  Rasir ran and sounded the alarm while Ficht dithered. Rasir took the high-speed elevator down to ground level.

  The alarm had woken others, who were milling about trying to decide what to do. Herb shouted, ‘What if we catch fire from it?’

  ‘Oh, be quiet, man. How could it possibly burn another tower? There’s no carrier for the flame, is there?’ That was Ooma.

  Lock agreed. ‘Listen, everyone. This is a crisis, for the Martians in Sud-Am of course, but also for us. What do we do about it? Keep quiet unless you have a suggestion to make.’

  ‘How can we possibly help them?’ Carn said. ‘We don’t have sufficient water available. Nor do we have hoses that stretch that far. We are useless as a fire brigade.’

  ‘I have to point out,’ said Doran, in his usual casual manner, ‘that the fire will consume all the oxygen in the building in less time than a horse might take to get there at a gallop.’

  ‘But that means everyone there will die,’ exclaimed Stroy.

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself,’ Doran said.

  ‘Some people may escape in masks,’ said Noel. She had come straight to the scene, and still wore her night overalls.

  The crowd stood there mute. They had something new and uncomfortable to think about.

  San Diego was a city and port on the south-west coast of North America. It had suffered less from the prevailing recession than many another city, since the shipping trade had revived. Those who took to the air in planes were felt to be in constant danger, since forces known as MEida had developed deadly missiles which ignited fuel tanks on planes, even when fired from a great distance: for example from the icy north of West Canada.

  Travel by fast car also had its perils, since the mines which plagued much of the world were now being planted across the States. This despite constant police patrols (which, after a recent incident, were now themselves under suspicion).

  The States had never before experienced such misery. Nevertheless Mangalian, alive despite the gossip to the contrary, spoke to the assembly gathered in San Diego’s city hall in a spirit of optimism and in fluent Spanish.

  ‘This great country will prevail, as it has prevailed against enemies on many other occasions. True, you now have battles to fight on your own territory in the Eastern states, but there I am confident you shall triumph and will be strengthened by the struggle.

  ‘Your duty is not only to support the troops, but to maintain those liberal philosophies for which the civilized world respects you. Let me give you one example. An example that’s bang up to date.

  ‘I’m speaking of your, of our, colonisation of Mars. To many people, the funding of this bold development merely weakens our best universities. I hold that our claim on Mars as habitation is a natural advance which has to be made while we can. Nevertheless, a scientific approach does not mean a neglect of moral responsibilities.

  ‘We see already a new facet to Martian history which tells us much about the vulnerability of the solar planetary system. When we have received more detail we shall gain a better understanding of the Ordovician and its fauna.

  ‘But first we have another more urgent question before us.

  ‘One of the foreign towers has broken rules of conduct we established after long discussion, and in consequence has come to grief. A fire broke out which has destroyed the Sud-Am tower, the occupants of which must be held guilty of transgression. However, we cannot s
et ourselves up as judges. We must give what succour we can. I have consequently sent a message ordering the West tower to take in survivors of this catastrophe, knowing those courageous spirits will do as I say.

  ‘On another matter …’ Mangalian paused, gratified by the murmurs of assent his declaration was receiving, ignoring those who scowled and did not clap.

  When the assembly was over, Mangalian and his bodyguards escaped from the great room by a side door. Mangalian had done what he saw as his duty and did not wish to answer questions or be interrogated by the press.

  His bodyguard, ‘Rhino’ Ray Saskace, was new to the job and showed himself to be effective in his role. They hurried down a badly-lit side passage.

  ‘Turn here!’ said Rhino, taking Mangalian’s elbow. ‘Safer this way! I got an auto waiting.’

  Guided by Rhino, Mangalian took an even narrower side passage. It too was dimly lit. At the far end of it, seen in silhouette, stood a uniformed man.

  Suddenly, Mangalian felt a chill of warning. He stopped. Could be the amygdala had whispered in his ear.

  ‘I left my notebook behind,’ he said.

  Even as he turned to run back, Rhino flung a strong arm about his neck, wrenching him off his feet and putting a knee in the small of his back. The uniformed man rushed to help Rhino.

  Between them they carried the struggling Mangalian to the nearest exit, to an untidy yard, behind the great bulk of the town hall, where a truck was waiting, its engine running.

  ‘We’ll teach you to drain the university dry,’ grunted Rhino. ‘Your mouth’s too big, that’s your trouble.’

  They slung him into the rear of the waiting truck.

  Mangalian was not seen alive again.

  29

  Questions of Evolution

  The sickening news of Mangalian’s death, now only too real, had still to reach Tharsis, when a small matter arose which had to be dealt with. Sheea had reported to the sick bay with a black eye. The pupil of the eye had possibly been damaged. Sheea, more than a year after her loss, still suffered depression; at the show of sick bay compassion, she broke down in tears.

  Gossip immediately started.

  ‘No doubt this is the work of Phipp,’ said Lock, who even on the ship had shown herself to be no friend of the man. ‘He should be locked up.’

  ‘It’s that same old problem still bugging Phipp,’ Herrit said. ‘Sheea refuses to say who made her pregnant. Finally, Phipp lost it, and hit her—hard.

  ‘He does suffer from jealousy.’

  ‘Typical male,’ joked Rasir. ‘Can’t get our own way, so hit out. We men always cause trouble. The Chinese have got their figures right—ninety percent of them in their tower are female.’

  ‘And the head of them, Gongcha, is in love with one of our males,’ said Stroy. ‘The trouble with men is too much testosterone—overactive testicles.’

  ‘We understand you almost came in touch with the largest prod on record.’

  Stroy laughed. ‘Almost but not quite. Now I wish I had had a look at it! His problem must be some kind of lack of male hormone plus elephantiasis.’

  ‘In other ways, Ficht seems a fairly normal man, and he’s got a high I.Q. Why does he want to show his prod about? Is it despair or is it pride?’

  ‘Generally, men flash their prods about from pride or lust.’

  ‘And why must we be so private about our privates?’ Rasir asked.

  ‘Well, I’ve often wondered whether men will be disappointed when you see this precious secret thing of ours,’ offered Stroy.

  Noel’s musing were on a different level. ‘Women rarely fight among themselves, although it does happen. Men are stronger, presumably an indication that they were born to hunt. Men fight. Men have something they need to achieve. Manhood. Armies have traditionally been for men only. Brave men. It’s a way of initiation into male company, presumably a hangover from early days in tribal Africa, where a youth had to go out and kill a lion with his bare hands, or fuck a female gorilla …’

  ‘Yeah, with a bare prodkin start it all …’

  Stroy said, ‘I’ve always understood that male and female psychologies are more similar than different. That’s why the diverse psychologies can submerge happily into one—during a love affair, for instance—at least for a while.’

  Noel nodded curtly and returned to her quarters. She had a woman sharing the sleeping arrangements, but did not greatly enjoy her loss of privacy.

  Rasir remained interested in the conversation concerning diverse psychologies.

  ‘Witness Tad and Gongcha,’ he said. There was laughter—some of it rather envious—round the table.

  ‘What do you mean, “witness”? Are you a Peeping Tom?’

  ‘Pity there’s no third sex,’ Stroy said. ‘The more sex the better.’

  ‘What would a third sex do?’

  ‘It could act as umpire …’

  ‘Oh, I was as sick as a—what gets frightfully sick?—sick as a pig. I would never go through that again.’ Tuot was telling Daark of her experience in the new pregnancy roundabout. She went on to elaborate just how sick she had been and the other pregnant girls too.

  ‘So we’re back to square one again,’ said Daark, cutting her short.

  ‘It’s funny, ’cos Mars is rotating and that doesn’t make us sick,’ said Tuot.

  ‘We ought to go down to the basement and consult the engineers. Maybe they could adjust the speed.’

  Tuot shuddered dramatically. ‘I wouldn’t go back in there for all the tea in China. As for that little rapscallion, Squirrel …’

  A day after the fire, and the beginning of Martian summer, there were still some survivors of the Sud-Am catastrophe outside the West tower and other towers, huddling around spare air tanks they’d either recovered, or been given. Somehow they seemed just a cloud on the horizon. Meanwhile, the catastrophe itself cast gloom over the occupants of the West tower. Aymee wanted to discuss the case, knowing a decision was urgent.

  ‘We are all upset about the fire at Sud-Am tower. Many people have perished, people like us. Surely, we must do something regarding this unhappy situation.

  ‘We await instructions from UU. Why is that? Does kindness need instruction?’

  She snorted in a minor key. ‘But we are too busy fixing the water filter now we’ve seen the critters that pee in it …

  ‘And of course Thirn has been bathing in it …’

  ‘Meanwhile, we don’t forget the more serious and abiding problem facing us, our inability to reproduce on this benighted planet. Dying now in a fire, or dying at some point in the future—this whole mission’s a waste if we don’t have children. The whole prospect of exploration of the solar system hinges on our bringing forth a new generation—a generation not native to Earth.’

  ‘Shortly before we left Luna for Mars,’ Aymee said, ‘I went to see an opera by Lyizaz called Steel to Saturn. The music was remarkable but the story, as so often is the case in opera, is absurd. Our hero falls in love with a mysterious woman who has arrived on Earth from the moons of Saturn. As it happens, our hero’s son, Cando, has gone into space and nothing has ever been heard of him since.

  ‘When there is a terrible storm—with much use of cymbals—our hero rescues the mysterious woman from a flood. They make love and only afterwards does she reveal that she is a metal being.

  ‘They have an all-metal child and then go to the mother’s home on Titan, the moon of Saturn where her kind live. Our hero finds that his son is living safely there. Everyone rejoices. The end!’

  Many people in the auditorium laughed with scorn.

  Aymee continued. ‘You don’t need me to tell you that, although the singing is good, the music beautiful and the scenery ingenious, the story is as soppy as can be. Leo Tolstoy in his essay “What is Art?” mocks an opera with a similar kind of plot. Disguises are gen
erally needed to drag us through three acts.

  ‘But think again of Steel to Saturn. Perhaps there is some meaning to it after all. We may need to change—I mean change our natures—to get to the further planets. To mutate. Indeed, we may be undergoing a terrible storm, the death of all our precious babies, before we are fit to travel further, as we hope to do, if only as far as Jupiter and its moons.

  ‘Evolution is a continuous process. We see many examples. Can anyone offer me an example?’

  Doran was the first to respond. ‘It happens I was born in a non-country, a kind of evolution in its own right. My country had been called Yugoslavia. Everywhere was still unsettled and my family took me to live on a Croatian island. The lizards there had developed a stronger jaw-movement—bite, in other words—than the lizards on neighbouring islands, because the vegetation was lusher and stronger. Indeed, one of them bit me. I can vouch for the stronger bite …’

  He spoke in his usual rather off-hand way. While the audience was chuckling at his last remark, Doran added, ‘I suppose better known than my agony, for which evolution is to blame, there’s the case of the African elephant and its shorter tusks, that Daark spoke of before.’

  Others started shouting that bacteria were surviving antibiotics at an alarming rate.

  Aymee held up her hands. ‘Okay, that will do. We can’t find any cure for the stillborn baby syndrome, but it will be solved for us. Just wait for five years. Our wombs will have adapted to the environment. Think of the womb as an elephant’s tusk! Our foetuses will also have figured things out. We shall be child-rich. I’m taking bets!’

  To her amazement, the audience began cheering.

  It seemed they would never stop.

  It came as a surprise to Aymee to find that even the most learned of her companions had not read Darwin’s Origin of Species, although they understood and took Darwin’s conclusions for granted. She had a grand old book by Alan Moorehead on disc. She played this disc to those who would listen. Many of them were particularly interested in what was said about Darwin’s discoveries when the Beagle was moored in the Galapagos Islands.