Brian Aldiss - White Mars

“Don’t be ridiculous, man. What leverage have we with Earth in its present state? Nothing’s going to get us home until the repercussions of the EUPACUS disaster clear up. Meanwhile we must do our best to live like humans.”

The alternatives were clear enough to me. Not to Feneloni. He said that all our committees and forums were a waste of time.

“I’m not entering into a debate with you, Feneloni. Not only am I determined to establish a fair society, but I expect the intellectual exercise involved to protect us from violence and unrest.

“Any scum determined to promote violence and unrest must be isolated, as if they had an infectious disease.”

“No such thing as justice,” he muttered, and hung his head again.

I waited. I was curious about the way his mind worked; I knew there was good in him.

After a silence, he said, “It’s all right for you. Some of us have families back on Earth. Kids.”

I gave him no reply, only wishing I could claim as much.

Feneloni looked up angrily. “Why don’t you speak, since you’re so good at it?”

“You cannot be allowed to attack a young woman and go unpunished. Tomorrow we will hold a court to decide what that punishment should be. Probably a course of mentatropy. You will be allowed to speak in your defence.”

Turning on my heel, I left him. Afterwards I wished I had said that to be eloquent was not necessarily a virtue; but it implied orderly thought and, perhaps more than that, wide experience and knowledge. But such, of course, was the reward of privilege, if only genetic privilege. My own troubled boyhood came back to me.

We made no attempt to track down Feneloni’s associates, hoping that without a leader they would not reoffend.

So it proved. Nevertheless we knew they were there, ready for violence should the opportunity arise.

Cang Hai was nervous after her experience.

“Tom, this is the second time I’ve been threatened with rape! What is it about me…?”

We talked it over and over. Ben Borrow came and let her talk it out of her system, as far as that was possible.

One evening, she said to me, “We know there are such men on Earth. Why should we be surprised to find them here, except that you and I are such innocents?”

It surprised me that she should think me an innocent, but I made no comment on that. “They will submit to the rules of society as long as it suits them.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps there’s an undercurrent of violence here we are blind to. Just as you and I are blind to the great amount of busy sexual activity going on. How is it that we enjoy debate more than sexual intercourse? Are we exceptions to the rule?”

I was stung by what she had said; I had assumed that my sexually active life had faded away during my period of mourning for my dead wife. As for Cang Hai, she clearly needed indoctrination into the pleasures of sex. That night, when the domes lay under their usual suspirations that passed for silence, and Laputa and Swift slid across the sky outside, I undressed and went to Cang Hai’s bed.

She sat up angrily. She told me she did not wish me to try and prove anything. That was not love.

“Don’t be silly. Let me in! We may as well have some pleasure.”

“Go away! I’m having a period. You’re too old. I’m not prepared for anything like this. Why didn’t you warn me? You’re taking advantage of me.” She kicked out at my legs.

Having been sent away, I lay in the dark in my own bed, wakeful, listening to the great machine that gave us life, breathing, breathing.

What had her real motives been, what mine?

How badly the human race needed a period of quiet, for reflection, and to become acquainted with its deepest motives…

After only brief discussion, we decided that Feneloni should be confined to the store room to which he had taken Cang Hai. The door should be strengthened. He should speak to no one, although he would be permitted the statutory one conversation with visitors. He should have three meals a day. A television monitor would be permitted, on which he could follow the events of the day in the domes. He should be incarcerated for two weeks, and then questioned again, to be set free if he had come to any better conclusion about himself.

If not, then mentatropy was to be applied.

In order to hasten Cang Hai’s return to her normal state of equilibrium, and to allow me some relief from the burdens of organisation, which seemed to be exacting a toll on my health, the two of us sat in on some of Alpha’s nursery classes.

Their Social Skills class began with a song:

The song ran though several verses. The children sang lustily, with enjoyment. It was noticeable that the girls concentrated on the music. Some of the boys were secretly prodding each other and making faces.

Afterwards I asked Alpha what she thought of the song, which sounded rather laboured to my ears.

“We like it,” Alpha said. “It’s a good song, about us.”

“What do you like about it?”

“‘Ships of no earthly sort’—that’s really hot. What does it mean, do you suppose?”

The teacher, the sculptor Benazir Bahudur, kept the two sexes in the same classroom but segregated. “It’s a difference in the genes,” she explained. “The boys have more difficulty in learning social skills, as you know. The girls are more intuitive. We think the boys need the girls in the room, to be given a glimpse of an alternative way of behaving. You will see the difference when we get to the games. But first we have a Natural History Slot. Are you ready, kids?”

Benazir was a slightly built woman. Her leisurely movements suggested a certain weariness, but when the full regard of her deep-set eyes was turned on you, an impression of drive and energy was received.

A screen lit on the wall. Insect noises could be heard. A brilliant landscape was revealed, the landscape of East Africa. The viewpoint moved rapidly towards a fine stand of trees.

“They’re acacia trees,” said Benazir.

Young saplings grew here, as well as mature trees with their corded bark. Benazir gave the children an explanation of what trees were and how they had developed. As she was explaining how grazing animals threatened the very existence of trees of all kinds, the viewpoint snuggled into the shade of a particular tree as if it would nest there. The children were silent, wondering.

A branch served as a highway for ants. The creatures were busy patrolling the whole tree. The camera followed them down to the ground and up to the fragrant blossoms of the acacia.

“I’m glad we don’t have those little things up here, miss,” said one of the girls.

“Ants are clever little creatures,” Benazir replied. “They have good social organisation. They guard the acacias from enemies—from herbivores and other insects. In return, the trees give them shelter. You wouldn’t want to climb that tree, would you? Why is that?”

“Because you’d get stung/attacked/bitten/eaten alive,” came gleeful answers from various parts of the room.

A thoughtful-looking boy asked, “What about the tree having sex? How can bees get to the flowers if they are attacked by these creepy little things?”

Benazir explained that the young acacia flowers, which smell very sweet, put out a chemical signal to keep the soldier ants away, so allowing the bees to pollinate them.

“What do the flowers smell like, exactly?” the boy asked.

Cang Hai and I debated privately if such glimpses of life on Earth would not start the children wondering about what they were missing. When we put this point to Benazir, she said that her charges had to be prepared for their return to Earth. She fed them with these shots of knowledge before they went out to play.