Red Mars(4)

He studied the men’s faces as they talked. An alien culture, no doubt about it. They weren’t going to change just because they were on Mars, they put the lie to John’s vision. Their thinking clashed radically with Western thought; for instance the separation of church and state was wrong to them, making it impossible for them to agree with Westerners on the very basis of government. And they were so patriarchal that some of their women were said to be illiterate— illiterates, on Mars! That was a sign. And indeed these men had the dangerous look that Frank associated with machismo, the look of men who oppressed their women so cruelly that naturally the women struck back where they could, terrorizing sons who then terrorized wives who terrorized sons and so on and so on, in an endless death spiral of twisted love and sex hatred. So that in that sense they were all madmen.

Which was one reason Frank liked them. And certainly they would come in useful to him, acting as a new locus of power. Defend a weak new neighbor to weaken the old powerful ones, as Machiavelli had said. So he drank coffee, and gradually, politely, they shifted to English, and by shifting with them Frank not only conceded their superiority in languages, but also found it easier to control the conversation.

“How did you like the speeches?” he asked, looking into the black mud at the bottom of his demitasse.

“John Boone is the same as ever,” old Zeyk replied. The others laughed angrily. “When he says we will make an indigenous Martian culture, he only means some of the Terran cultures here will be promoted, and others attacked. Those perceived as regressive will be singled out for destruction. It is a form of Ataturkism.”

“He thinks everyone on Mars should become American,” said a man named Nejm.

“Why not?” Zeyk said, smiling. “It’s already happened on Earth.”

“No,” Frank said. “You shouldn’t misunderstand Boone. People say he’s self-absorbed, but—”

“He is self-absorbed!” Nejm cried. “He lives in a hall of mirrors! He thinks that we have come to Mars to establish a good old American superculture, and that everyone will agree to it because it is the John Boone plan.”

Zeyk said, “He doesn’t understand that other people have other opinions.”

“It’s not that,” Frank said. “It’s just that he knows they don’t make as much sense as his.”

They laughed at that, but the younger men’s hoots had a bitter edge. They all believed that before their arrival Boone had argued in secret against U.N. approval for Arab settlements. Frank encouraged this belief, which was almost true— John disliked any ideology that might get in his way. He wanted the slate as blank as possible in everybody who came up.

The Arabs, however, believed that John disliked them in particular. Young Selim el-Hayil opened his mouth to speak, and Frank gave him a swift warning glance. Selim froze, then pursed his mouth angrily. Frank said, “Well, he’s not as bad as all that. Although to tell the truth I’ve heard him say it would have been better if the Americans and Russians had been able to claim the planet when they arrived, like explorers in the old days.”

Their laughter was brief and grim. Selim’s shoulders hunched as if struck. Frank shrugged and smiled, spread his hands wide. “But it’s pointless! I mean, what can he do?”

Old Zeyk lifted his eyebrows. “Opinions vary on that.”

Opinions vary on that. Yes, a lot of people had underestimated John Boone— Chalmers had done it himself many times. An image came to him of John in the White House, pink with conviction, his disobedient blond hair flying wildly, the sun streaming in the Oval Office windows and illuminating him as he waved his hands and paced the room, talking away while the President nodded and his aides watched, pondering how best to co-opt that electrifying charisma. Oh, they had been hot in those days, Chalmers and Boone; Frank with the ideas and John the front man, with a momentum that was practically unstoppable. It would be more a matter of derailment, really.



• • •

Chalmers got up to move on, meeting for one instant Selim’s insistent gaze. Then he strode down a side street, one of the narrow lanes that connected the city’s seven main boulevards. Most were paved with cobblestones or streetgrass, but this one was rough blond concrete. He slowed by a recessed doorway, looked in the window of a closed boot manufactory. His faint reflection appeared in a pair of bulky walker boots.

Selim el-Hayil’s reflection appeared among the boots.

“Is it true?” he demanded.

“Is what true?” said Frank crossly.

“Is Boone anti-Arab?”