Brian Aldiss - White Mars

“Perhaps the mistake was,” said Guenz, mildly, “not to label the piece ‘Romanian Rhapsody’—to acknowledge the borrowing. Then you’d have been praised for your cleverness.”

But Dayo insisted that he would merely have been accused of stealing.

“I meant no harm. I only wished to raise my status. But if you’re black you’re always in trouble, whichever way you turn.”

He went off in dejection.

Tom and Guenz looked at each other in dismay.

Then Guenz broke into a laugh. “It’s you whites who are to blame for everything, including getting us here,” he said.

“My instinct is to legislate. But what could legislation do in a case like this? How might one word it? Can I ask you, Guenz, do you feel yourself racially discriminated against, as a Central Asian?”

“It has sometimes proved to be an advantage, because it had some slight novelty value. That’s worn off. There was a time when people were suspicious of my foreignness, but that is in-built, a survival trait. I was equally suspicious of you whites. Still am, to a degree.”

They discussed whether they had any extra in-built discrimination against the Nigerian, Dayo. Had they expected him to “get away” with something? Had the dismal past history of white victimisation of blacks anything to do with it? Was there a superstitious mistrust of “black” as a colour, as there might be of left-handedness?

These were questions they could not answer. They had to conclude it might be the case. Certainly, they would be wary if a traditional green Martian appeared in their midst.

They could only hope that such atavistic responses would die away as rational men of all colours mixed.

We could only hope that the colour question would fade away, united as we were by a common concern regarding survival and in perfecting our society. However, the matter was to arise again later, and in a more serious case.

During this period, I consulted with many people, delegating duties where it was possible to do so. Many people also came to my office to deliver advice or complaint. One of these visitors was a rather lacklustre-looking young YEA scientist. He announced himself as Chad Chester.

“Maybe you know my name as the guy who went down into the water caves off Marineris with Kathi Skadmorr. I guess I didn’t make a great showing compared with her.”

“Not many of us do. What can I do for you?”

Chad explained that he had listened to my lecture on the five obstacles to contentment on Earth. He noted that at one point I had referred to the slogan, “All men are equal”. He was sure this saying embodied a mistaken assumption; he never thought of himself as equal to Kathi, for example. That experience in the caves had led him to put down his thoughts on paper. He felt that “All men are equal” should not be used in any Utopian declaration we might make, for reasons he had tried to argue.

When he had gone I set Chad’s paper aside. I looked at it two days later.

His argument was that the very saying was self-denying, since it mentioned only men and not women. It was meaningless to pretend that men and women were equal; they were certainly similar in many ways, but the divergence between them made the question of being equal (except possibly in law) irrelevant. Furthermore, the diversity of the genetic code meant a different inheritance of capacities even within a family.

“All men are equal” held an implication that all could compete equally; that also was untrue. A musician may have no capacity for business. A nuclear physicist may be unable to build a bridge. And so forth, for several pages.

He suggested that a better slogan would be, “All men and women must be allowed equal opportunities to fulfil their lives.”

I liked the idea, although it had not the economy, the snap, of the original it replaced. I wondered about “All dudes are different.”

Any such sloganeering boiled down to one thing. It was important to have maximum latitude to express ourselves within the necessarily confining rules of our new society. Someone mentioned the dragon that earlier YEAs had painted on the rock face; they emphasised the way in which it had caused alarm, being unexpected. Yet creativity must continue to produce the unexpected or the community would perish. Although latitude was needed, it was generally accepted that our society had to operate within prescribed rules.

Creativity we needed, but not stupidity and ignorance.

We had begun to discuss education when a slightly built and handsome young woman with dark hair came forward. She poured out from the pockets of her overalls on to a central table a number of gleaming objects, various in shape.

“Before you speak of any orderly society, you’d better be aware,” she said, “that Mars is already occupied by a higher form of life. They carved these beautiful objects and then, evidently dissatisfied with them, cast them away.”

The room was in an uproar. Everyone was eager to examine the exquisite shapes, seemingly made of glass. Some appeared to be roughly shaped translucent models of small elephants, snails, labias and phalluses, puppy dogs, hippopotami, boulders, coproliths, and hedgehogs. All were bright and pleasant to the touch.

The faces of those who picked up the objects were full of alarm. Always at the back of our minds had been the suspicion that the yet almost unexplored planet might somehow, against all reason, harbour life.

The young woman allowed the drama of the situation she had created to sink in before saying, loudly, “I’m an areologist. I’ve been working alone in the uplands for a week. Don’t worry! These are pieces of rock crystal, chemical formula SiO 2. They’re just translucent quartz, created by nature.”

A howl mingled with dismay and approbation rose.

The young woman said with a laugh, “Oh, I thought I’d just give you a scare while you were making up all these rules to live by.”

I persuaded her to sit by me while the crowd reassembled. She was lively and restless. Her name was Sharon Singh, she told me. She was half-English, half-Indian, and had spent much of her young life in the terrestrial tropics.

“You can’t find Mars particularly congenial,” I remarked.

She gave a wriggle. “Oh, it’s an adventure. Unlike you, I do not intend to live here for ever. Besides, there are many idle and eager men here who enjoy a little romance. That’s one of the real meanings of life, isn’t it? Mine is a romantic nature…” She flashed a smile at me, then regarded me more seriously. “What are you thinking?”

I could not tell her, saying instead, “I was thinking that we can sell these pretty rock crystal objects for souvenirs when matrix traffic resumes.”

Sharon Singh uttered a rather scornful laugh, momentarily showing her pretty white teeth. “Some things are not for sale!” She gave her wriggle again.

That night, I could not sleep. The smile, those dark eyes fringed by dense lashes, the carelessness, the wriggle—they filled my mind. All my serious contemplations were gone, together with my resolves. I thought—well, I thought that I would follow Sharon Singh to Earth, and gladly, if need be. That I would give anything for a night with her in my arms.

In order to sublimate my desire for Sharon Singh, I made a point of talking personally to as many men and women as possible, sounding out their opinions and gathering an impression of their feelings towards our situation and the practicalities of living decently.

My quantcomp rang as I was going down K.S. Robinson. A woman’s voice requested an appointment. In another half-hour, I found myself confronting Willa Mendanadum and her large companion, Vera White. I saw them in my small office. With Vera in her large flowing lilac robes, the room was pretty full.