Robert Heinlein - Red Planet

"Let him stay," decided Marlowe. "Who are you?"

"Jan van der Linden, instructor here in natural sciences.

Who, may I ask, are you?"

"Name's Marlowe. I'm supposed to be in charge of this mad house. Look here, could you round up the boys who live outside the school? We are going to have to stay here for a day or two at least. I'm sorry but it's necessary. There can't very well be any classes; you might as well send the town boys home-and the teachers, too."

The teacher looked doubtful. "Mr. Howe won't like me doing it without his say-so."

"It's necessary. I'm going to do it in any case but you can speed things up and help me put an end to this riot. I take full responsibility."

Jim saw his mother through the crowd and did not wait to hear the outcome. She was leaning against the wall, holding Oliver and looking very tired, almost sick. Phyllis was standing close to her. Jim wormed his way through the crowd.

"Mother!"

She looked up. "What is it. Jimmy?"

"You come with me." "Oh, Jimmy-I'm too tired to move."

"Come on! I know a place where you can lie down." A few minutes later he had the three in the room abandoned by Frank and himself: it was, as he had guessed, still unoccupied. His mother sank down on his bunk. "Jimmy, you're an angel."

"You just take it easy. Phyl can bring you something to eat when it's ready. Uh, there's a toilet right across the hall. I'm going back and see what's going on." He started to leave, then hesitated. "Phyl-would you take care of Willis for me?"

"Why? I want to see what's doing, too."

"You're a girl; you'd better stay out from under foot."

"Well, I like that! I guess I've got just as much business-"

"Stop it, children. Jimmy, we'll take care of Willis. Tell your father where we are."

Jim delivered his mother's message, then found himself rather late in the chow line. By the time he had gone through for seconds as well, and eaten same, he discovered that most of the colonists were gathered in the school auditorium. He went in, spotted Frank and Doctor MacRae standing against the rear wall and squeezed over to them.

His father was pounding for order, using the butt of his gun as a gavel. "Mr. Linthicum has the floor."

The speaker was a man about thirty with an annoyingly aggresssive manner. "I say Doctor MacRae is right; we shouldn't fool around. We've got to have boats to get to Copais. Right? Beecher won't give 'em to us. Right? But all the actual force Beecher has is a squad of cops. Right? Even if he deputizes every man in Syrtis he only has maybe a hundred to a hundred and fifty guns. Right? We've got twice that many or more right here. Besides which Beecher won't be able to get all the local employees to fight us. So what do we do? We go over and grab him by the neck and force him to do right by us. Right?" He sat down triumphantly.

MacRae muttered, "Heaven defend me from my friends."

Several tried to speak; Marlowe picked one out. "Mr. Gibbs has the floor."

"Mr. Chairman... neighbors... I have rarely heard a more rash and provocative speech. You persuaded us, Mr. Marlowe, to embark on this reckless adventure, a project of which, I must say, I never approved-"

"You came along!" someone shouted.

"Order!" called Marlowe. "Get to the point, Mr. Gibbs."

"... but in which I acceded rather than oppose the will of the majority. Now the hasty and ill-tempered would make matters worse with outright violence. But now that we are here, at the seat of government, the obvious thing to do is to petition for redress of grievances."

"If you mean by that to ask Beecher for transportation to Copais, Mr. Gibbs, I've already done that."

Gibbs smiled thinly. "Forgive me, Mr. Marlowe, if I say that the personality of the petitioner sometimes affects the outcome of the petition? I understand we have here, Mr. Howe, the Headmaster of this school and a person of some influence with the Resident Agent General. Would it not be wise to seek his help in approaching the Resident?"

Mr. Sutton shouted, "He's the last man on Mars I'd let speak for me!"

"Address the chair. Pat," Marlowe cautioned. "Personally, I feel the same way, but I won't oppose it if that's what the crowd wants. But," he continued, addressing the audience, "is Howe still here? I haven't seen him."

Kelly stood up. "Oh, he's here all right; he's still holed up in his office. I've talked to him twice through his ventilator, I've promised him a honey of a beating if he will only do me the favor of coming out and standing up to me like a man."

Mr. Gibbs looked scandalized. "Well, really!"

"It's a personal matter involving my boy," explained Kelly.

Marlowe banged the table. "I imagine Mr. Kelly will waive his privilege if you folks really want Howe to speak for you. Do I hear a motion?" Gibbs proposed it; in the end only he and the Pottles voted for it.

After the vote Jim said, "Dad?"

"Address the chair, son. What is it?"

"Er, Mr. Chairman-I just got an idea. I was wondering, since we haven't got any boats, just maybe we could get to Copais the way Frank and I got back to Charax-that is, if the Martians would help us." He added, "If folks wanted us to, I guess Frank and I could go back and find Gekko and see what could be done about it." There was a moment of silence, then murmurs of "What's he talking about?" and unresponsive replies. Although almost all of the colonists had heard some version of the two boys' story, it was the simple fact mat it had not been believed, as told, or had been ignored or discounted. The report ran counter to experience and most of the colonists were as bogged down in "common sense" as their relatives back on Earth. The necessary alternative, that the boys had crossed eight hundred and fifty miles of open country without special shelter equipment, simply had not been examined by them; the "common sense" mind does not stoop to logic.

Mr. Marlowe frowned. "You've brought up an entirely new possibility, Jim." He thought a moment. "We don't know that Hie natives have these conveyances between here and Copais-"

"I'll bet they have!"

"-and we don't know that they would let us ride in mem even if they have."

"But, Dad, Frank and I-"

"A point of order, Mr. Chairman!" It was Gibbs again. "Under what rules do you permit children to speak in the councils of adult citizens?"

Mr. Marlowe looked embarrassed and annoyed. Doctor MacRae spoke up. "Another point of order, Mr. Chairman. Since when does this cream puff-" He motioned at Gibbs. "Order, Doctor."

"Correction. I mean this fine upstanding male citizen, Mr. Gibbs, get the notion that Frank and Jim and the other guntoting men their age ain't citizens? I might mention in passing that I was a man grown when this Gibbs party was still wetting his diapers-"

"Order!" ,

"Sorry. I mean even before he had reached that stage. Now as I see it, this is a frontier society and any man old enough to fight is a man and must be treated as such-and any girl old enough to cook and tend babies is an adult, too. Whether you folks know it yet or not, you are headed into a period when you'll have to fight for your rights. The youngsters will do most of the fighting; it behooves you to treat them accordingly. Twenty-five may be the right age for citizenship in a moribund, age-ridden society like that back on Earth, but we aren't bound to follow customs that aren't appropriate to our needs here."

Mr. Marlowe banged his gun. "I declare this subject out of order. Jim, see me after the meeting. Has anyone any specific action to propose that can be carried out at this time? Do we negotiate, or do we resort to force of numbers?"

Mr. Konski addressed the chair and said, "I favor taking what we have to have, if necessary, but it may not be necessary. Wouldn't it be well for you, Mr. Marlowe, to phone Mr. Beecher again? You could point out to him that we have force enough to do as we see fit; perhaps he will see reason. In fact, I so move."