Free Finches of Mars by Brian W. Aldiss

Noel?’
    â€˜That can’t be right? What does the midwife say?’
    â€˜Is it the doctor’s fault?’
    â€˜The midwife’s?’
    â€˜The father’s?’
    â€˜Or the mother’s?’
    â€˜It must be something the mother’s done wrong …’
    â€˜I don’t believe it,’ said one of the astronomers in a hushed tone that indicated he did not want to believe it.
    A woman took him up sharply. ‘Whatever you care to think, I’ll tell you different. My little boy died only a week before he was due. It’s a terrible grief, almost unbearable …’
    Comments rattled round the room. Everyone was dismayed. The knowledge of so many stillbirths had been suppressed, even within the local wards. The images of Mars as a pure place, as a great desert not too far from holiness, had now been corrupted by a vision of desiccating corpses scattered like dead snail shells.
    Lock and Ooma were on their way to the dormitory, agreeing that they must cooperate more closely with the other towers, when they came across Thirn, weeping childlike in a corner.
    â€˜What is it?’ Ooma asked. ‘Are you pregnant?’
    â€˜No man here will have me. I’m too—I’m too shy for casual sex.’ Thirn set up a wail. ‘I wish I were back on Earth …’
    â€˜Nonsense, lass,’ said Lock, who had been born in Estonia. ‘You’re safe here. War on Earth is continuous. It rumbles from one area to another, like a thunderstorm.’
    â€˜I hadn’t thought of it like that,’ said Thirn, sniffing. ‘So, what?’
    â€˜Have you ever thought of anything?’ The pair of them moved on.

12
    Mulling Over Required
    Months passed, with little change. Stocks of food, supplies of many medicaments, were getting low. But the report from Astronomy Local was that the great ship Confu was now just about ready for launch from its lunar orbit. Ready and waiting for its next journey to the Red Planet.
    If that was a reason for hope, it was also a reason for anxiety.
    The irrational had begun to pop up at the morning Brighteners. A woman known as Vooky suggested that since there was such a high preponderance of women on Tharsis, a language should be introduced used solely by women. And if literature would be needed, she would herself be prepared to translate Samuel Johnson’s great novel, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia .
    A hubbub of agreement and dissent broke out. It was killed by a woman rising to say there had been such a language, called Nushu, flourishing mainly in the Chinese province of Hunan. It had been used for centuries but had died out. Nushu had come into being because of the oppression of women.
    A woman known as Iggog said from the floor, ‘“Nushu”? Totally irrelevant! A fragment from a different umwelt! Here we are, endeavouring to live in a new umwelt trying to deal with a dire foetal disaster. If we fail, this entire enterprise also becomes stillborn.’
    Ooma agreed. ‘Is the jinx with the foetus, or with the mother? Do we know that yet? Does the journey to Mars seriously and permanently affect our circulation and heart action? We don’t even know that much.’ A gloomy silence fell.
    Iggog was a small woman of uncertain age. She had a curt manner and was prone to malicious gossip, but was unexpectedly gentle with the women who came anxiously to ask about that ever-discussed question of stillbirths.
    â€˜There may be no cure, darlings. Remember what complex creatures you are. Somewhere along the rocky road of evolution, humans collected friendly bacteria which have become symbiotic with us, and live in our, pardon me, guts. Even those of you more diminutive than I’—she permitted herself a twinkle—‘are fully equipped with them. But they may prove to be slow to change, thus upsetting our entire reproductive systems.’
    â€˜How long will that take?’