Finches of Mars. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ favour of – what, exactly? Well, the Economy, the godless, thankless Economy …

      ‘And like the faithful anywhere, any time, we don’t realise how much it all costs to the human spirit.

      ‘Carmen – a Catholic, she was paying with the clap. So are we, mental clap, exile on Mars …’

      ‘You’re ranting,’ Simpson wanted to say, but refrained.

      Henry Simpson was unaccustomed to discussions of this kind. It was true that after the death of his wife he had gone less frequently to the golf club and more often to an art club, where all kinds of matters were discussed, but he was still reluctant to enter into argument with Prestwick. He said, in a way that seemed feeble even to himself, ‘But we have so many advantages. I was beginning to suffer from Alzheimer’s, but it was cured. We’ve put the past behind us for present advantages, surely …’

      ‘You don’t like talking about the past, just as you don’t like the thought of being descended from apes?’

      Simpson was beginning to feel strained. He spoke with some anger. ‘I read novels of the present day. I doubt if I’d read a novel of the Tenth Century, even if there was such a thing.’

      Prestwick produced a paperback of an old-fashioned kind and pressed his light to burn brighter.

      ‘Henry, would you mind if I read you a bit of something? It’s a life of a woman of the Twelfth Century, written later, after her death. I brought it with me although I’ve read it a coupla times before. It fascinates me because the lives it depicts are so different from ours of today, and yet both different and similar. It’s the life of a woman who became known as Christina of Markyate.’

      ‘I may fall asleep,’ Simpson warned.

      ‘Don’t worry. I shall kick you if you do. This young lady who became known as Christina lived her life as a virgin. Different from today, different from my Carmen. Anyhow, that’s what she did, what she was determined to do. She became a “Bride of Christ”. Not that he ever seemed to take a blind bit of notice of her.

      ‘She was a bright girl, her parents were as difficult as could be, in quite a modern way. So this modest and deeply religious girl became betrothed to one Beorhtred. She had been tricked and openly swore she would not be defiled by Beorhtred’s carnal embraces. Not likely today!

      ‘Her father drags her before the Prior, who asks, “Why should you bring this dishonour to your parents?”’

      Simpson looked out into the Martian darkness, where stars burned, and kept silent.

      ‘Christina’s answers are splendid; she says to the Prior, “You who are supposed to excel in the knowledge of scripture, must judge how wicked a thing this would be, should my parents enter me into a marriage I never wanted, and make me unfaithful to Christ, He who knows of the vow I had made in my childhood.”’

      Stifling a yawn, Simpson said, ‘She may speak well, as you say, but those were lives lived on false premises. All very well for the Twelfth Century, not now.’

      ‘What I’m trying to argue is that, yes, the premises were false, but no less false are the premises of today. Shall I continue?’ Prestwick tweaked a page.

      ‘Her parents, as the book says, “did not know how to see beyond worldly possessions”. That has a contemporary ring about it, wouldn’t you say? But at every instant, despite the cruelty of her parents, she remained, as she always said a “Bride of Christ”. A virgin, in fact.’

      ‘Nowadays, she would have treatment for frigidity,’ said Simpson, with a grin. ‘Jesus, it’s uncomfortable here. You can’t even scratch your arse on this bunk.’

      ‘Yes, and these days her parents would be judged guilty of violence against their daughter. But the daughter would nevertheless be harmed. We read of such cases in the screamers every day.’

      ‘Well, cut it short. What happened then?’

      ‘Bad bishops have never been a novelty. With the assistance of one of them, Beorhtred gained power over her. He jeered at Christina in his hour of triumph. She asked him a question. “Tell me, Beorhtred, and may God have mercy on you, if another were to come and take me away from you and marry me, what would you do?” To which he replied in brutish fashion, “I wouldn’t put up with it for a moment as long as I lived. I would kill him with my own hands if there were no other way of keeping you.”

      ‘So she replies – I love this – she replies, “Beware then of wanting to take to yourself a Bride of Christ, lest in His anger He slay you.”’

      Simpson gave a laugh. ‘She was quick-witted at least. But “Bride of Christ” …? Who’d believe that today?’

      Prestwick answered sadly, ‘No one would. Today most teenage girls in the West have lost their virginity by the age of fifteen and think well of themselves for having done so.’

      ‘So I suppose your Christina went to live in a nunnery …’

      ‘Where else would she have gone for safety in those days? Or now?’

      Silence fell between the two men. Then Simpson said. ‘At least we treat women better now.’

      He felt he had scored a point there.

      Operation Horizon delivered a positive report to the executive council of the United Universities. Subterranean channels had been charted, and a reservoir containing plentiful H₂O of unknown quality. A map of the area on the Tharsis Shield accompanied their report, with waterways depicted like blue veins.

      It was the verdict of the two hydrologists making the report that this area would be a suitable site for the settlement to be established, at least as far as water supply was concerned.

      This report provided the necessary impetus for the development of this great and unprecedented enterprise – the colonisation of Mars.

      A surveyor by name Moses Barrin was immediately hired to draw up sites for proposed Martian settlements known as towers. His instructions were to demarcate a site where six small habitations could be established. He used maps created from data from both Operation Horizon and even the now ancient NASA vehicle Curiosity. Barrin was to be among the first humans sent to colonize Mars.

      The Message, newspaper of the Vatican, warned of the moral dangers of venturing onto a planet where Jesus Christ had never trod.

      Several screamers showed cartoons of Jesus wandering alone, asking, ‘Where’s someone to save?’

       4

       Final Journey

      The report of Martian water running underground did much to excite public interest in the project, and to stir the involvement of the universities. There was less talk of trips to Mars being ‘madness’. In Chinese cities new factories were manufacturing ‘space planes’.

      The United Universities, from the original three, had expanded to thirty-one signatories, consisting mainly of universities or departments of universities situated in the United СКАЧАТЬ