Clutching the Coke bottle, Mangalian went out to his father.
‘Pop, what’s a binary system?’
‘Son, that just means there’s two of whatever. Fact is, the more you learn, the more you find you don’t know.’
The gulls still sailed and screeched overhead, as if in mockery.
His son looked down at the sand between his bare toes. Later, as an adult, Mangalian liked to say that this was the moment when he decided he must get off the island, put on shoes, and start learning about astronomy and many other things with which the capitalist world seemed stocked.
So he liked to say. He could even recall the taste of the Coke. But memory was uncertain – although the anecdote made a good tale when, much later, he was being interviewed at one grand meeting or another.
BABY BOOM ON RED PLANET
NO WATER – BUT CHRISTENING NOW DUE
‘A MIRACLE’ SAYS MARVELLING MOTHER
IT’S A BOY! EVEN BETTER: IT’S ALIVE
Such were some of the headlines in squealers and squeakers all round the world, driving out the exciting news that nine hundred intending immigrants from Africa had been shot dead within Italian waters, off the coast of Catanzaro.
Other news began to re-emerge, but Mars still appeared in some headlines.
KUWAIT ON FIRE – SEGREGATION RIOTS TO BLAME
ITALIAN PRESIDENT’S PARTNESS POISONED
TWENTY UN TROOPS KILLED IN KALMYTSKAYA
THARSIS CELEBRATES NEW BABY
In fact there was little celebration in the Tharsis settlement, as the Terrier found when he spoke on the shrieker. A small Chinese delegation came to offer felicitations to the Western tower. Phipp officiated at the gate in a suppressed rage. Local people, aware that Sheea had taken another lover and wishing to tease, or not knowing he’d quarrelled with Sheea, kept congratulating him. But the amazing baby had been sired by someone unknown.
Sheea still would not give the name of her lover, and was in a weakened state, needing nursing. Her baby lay by her side. It was of a yellowy colour and malformed. Oxygen was being fed to it through a Perspex mask.
‘But how is Dolores herself?’ the Terrier asked.
Twenty minutes was consumed in getting word to Mars, with another twenty minutes for a response.
‘She is in a somewhat depressed state, but being brave. The child is still alive. But unconscious.’ Such was the response from a nurse who then severed communication.
Tibbett found he needed a strong drink.
Daze and Piggy, two of Sheea’s three Earth-born children, sat anxiously near their mother’s bed, speaking – when they spoke – in whispers. Squirrel, Sheea’s senior child, was nowhere to be seen.
As Phipp grudgingly let in the Chinese delegation, one of the men stared curiously at him. Ill-tempered as he was, Phipp challenged the man.
‘What are you staring at me for?’
‘No, I don’t stare,’ was the reply. ‘You are to be congratulated to have a living child born here. Why you are not pleased?’
For answer, Phipp seized the man by the throat and shook him.
Uproar broke out. Guards burst in. The Chinese punched Phipp.
Phipp was dragged away, kicking savagely. The guards pushed him into a side chamber. ‘What the hell are you thinking about, you fool? You have disgraced us. The Chinese are – or were – our friends.’
‘Look, some bastick got up my partness. Why not that guy – giving me that gloating stare?’
‘You’re psychotic. Why should some Chinese guy sneak into her bed? And you don’t own Sheea. We don’t do such things here. It’s psychoanalysis for you. And you’ve lost your job.’
The news of this incident circulated fast. No one was happier to hear that Phipp would be confined than was his son Squirrel. Still, Squirrel could not bring himself to face his mother. Just a half hour of dear wicked pleasure and he was disgraced for ever – yes, disgraced, even if his act had produced the first living Martian baby …
He could never tell anyone about that.
Barnard and Lulan escorted Barrin by ambulance to St Thomas’s Hospital in the heart of London. He had collapsed just as the session ended. The hospital buildings were surrounded by solid concrete blocks, one storey high. Armed men looked out from the rooftops. Suicide-bombers had attacked the hospital almost from the moment Barrin had arrived, indifferent to any other casualties.
These attackers, the faithful, acted in accord with a passage from the Koran which says, ‘Neither on earth nor in heaven shall you escape His reach: nor have you any besides God to protect or help you. Those that disbelieve God’s revelations and deny that they will ever meet Him shall despair of My mercy. A woeful punishment awaits them.’
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