Brian Aldiss - Finches of Mars

The response of the audience was mixed. Many were simply pleased. A few, better informed, remained sceptical.

Barrin continued.

‘Some of you academics may know this but thousands of ordinary people have been kept in ignorance. But I must now state plainly that until this child of Sheea’s arrived alive, no woman on Tharsis has ever borne a living child. Baby bodies were born broken, distorted, dead …’

He paused to choke back tears. ‘Yes, broken, dead, some with no legs, some with eggshell skulls, one of them with no brain at all …

‘The President has said I should tell you this. So far, only eighty-five babies have been born in the West tower. And all were stillborn.’

There were some aghast cries from the audience at his words.

‘Yes, still-born. Eighty-five. Malformed, as I’ve said. The grief of it … impossible to describe.’

A woman in the audience shouted, ‘How did this happen? How could it happen?’

Barrin could not go on. Tibbett took over, to continue in a slightly steadier voice. ‘The number of these miscarriages has tailed off, these last two years – simply because Tharsis women refuse to become pregnant, knowing, fearing, what the outcome will almost inevitably be.

‘Sheea is – we all believe – incredibly fortunate. Her child lives.

‘He was born only a couple of hours back. Sadly, he is deformed and is not well. We will keep this information from the public.

‘But the great thing is we have a living Martian child at last!’

Most of the audience rose and clapped. Then the questions began. Eighty-five stillbirths! How could it be?

A small courtyard behind one of the buildings of the Sorbonne in Paris contained an oak bench and table. The news of the birth had not yet reached Paris. Mangalian, unaware of the momentous news, was sitting relaxing on a bench. He had been guest lecturing to the Earth Sciences students on the colonisation so far, and the merits of going to live in what he had described as ‘the new old world’ of Mars. After lunch, a debate had been held with Mangalian and Adrien Amboise on one side – for the necessity of the Martian venture – and a group of German and Chinese scientists on the other.

Sunshine bathed the courtyard with mellow light and warmth. In the cracks between the flagstones with which the courtyard was paved, small weeds had sprung up. In one of the cracks near Mangalian grew a little yellow flower with tiny spiked petals and a fuzzy rich heart the size of a baby’s fingernail.

Mangalian was idly watching a ladybird. It crawled over the leaves of the weed to the flagstone, where it made haste to walk to the distant stalk of another weed. On reaching the stalk, the insect climbed it, opened its wing case, and flew away.

He wondered what impulse governed it. Could it feel contentment or discontent? On what did it feed? How would it die? He had not studied such matters, although he imagined the insects went from eggs to larvae to the adult form he had been watching. What could it feel like to undergo such a transformation? Would humanity undergo as dramatic a transformation on Mars? What might happen to Rosemary? – Rosemary who had taken flight just like the ladybird.

He realised at that point – as a man was approaching from the nearby building – that his ladybird had no spots on its wing-case. He had assumed that all ladybirds had spots. Possibly this was a new evolutionary variety, adapting to the environs of Paris.

The man approaching stood before Mangalian, smiling. This was Adrien Amboise, Professor of Medical Studies at the Sorbonne. Amboise was about forty-five, trim and sporting a small moustache. He wore a gown. His father had worked at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, where he had fallen in love with and married in old-fashioned style the elegant German woman whose researches led to the later discovery of the normon.

Mangalian admired both Adrien’s father and his intellectually formidable mother. And, normally, would delight in conversation with Adrien. However, at the moment, he wanted only an hour’s peace, but he rose and the men shook hands. ‘I apologise for interrupting your reverie.’

‘Don’t worry. I was only thinking about ladybirds.’

Amboise looked confused. After a slight pause, he said, ‘I too am an admirer of the ladies.’

‘What can I do for you? Do you wish to apply to me for a life on Mars?’ Mangalian was speaking jokingly, after relaxing in the sun and not feeling avid for conversation. He had been thinking of Rosemary Cavendish, regretting that he had been so chaste where she was concerned. But there had been a kind of hauteur in her manner. Well, all that was but a dream … Already, it was five years since Rosemary had left Earth for her Tharsis occupation.

‘Sadly, monsieur, the idea of living on Mars is a bad dream, so I have come to believe.’ Adrien Amboise endeavoured to show regret. He stood there poised and graceful, in a suit, in the sun, smiling politely as he gazed at Mangalian, who had showed no inclination to get up from his chair. ‘I would support you in a debate, but that is not for me. Here on Earth, continual disturbance, distraction, disaster … but on Mars – what? Continual boredom … And the unresolved stillbirth problem …’

‘Yet to be on that silent planet, Adrien … Isn’t that a wonderful success? Applied science … It’s a dream that has been pondered for some centuries and is now more than just a dream – a waking dream which–’

‘Oh, of course for over two centuries there have been stories – as there have been ghost stories – what you may call the science fiction – but they are made for superficial adventure, as the often uninspired writing indicates–’

‘Ah, so you are not only a medico but a critic of literature!’ Mangalian, with a curl of his lip, stared into the distance as he spoke.

‘No, no, no, but such tales had no true deliberation, only conveying thrills of conquest or doom. A shallow fiction …’