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”The dining hall at the governor's residence was heated to a precisely calculated diplomatic median of fifty-two degrees. Which is to say, “Too hot for Johnny Martian, too cold for John Bull.” Still, we wore our overcoats and boots and a ration of hot punch kept the men cheerful, and it was a relief after sweltering weeks in space to not be swimming in your clothes.
Indeed, the cold, the dress uniforms, the transplanted pines dotting the compound, the hot drinks and plentiful food rather put us in mind of Christmas. Our colour sergeant, Carstairs, with his great white beard and red coat, had more than one infantry wag pointing him out as Father Christmas, a comparison he bore with great equanimity. Even the Martians seemed in the spirit. They wore colourful filmy stuff, sort of gowns and togas and light capes that exposed their spidery limbs, which they festooned with bangles of iron and brass. When they spoke to us, it was in deep and booming voices, but chatted with one another in chirrups and tenor toots and, once or twice, positive squeaking. (Middleton told me Martians were never sure humans could hear 'em in the thin air, so they sounded off like great bass fiddles when talking to us.) Sounded a bit like a menagerie to my ears, or an aviary, but a happy one. The gloom of the trip and the uneasiness of the landing seemed to vanish, at least for the length of the supper.
HM King Parhoon was the first Martian I'd encountered close enough to touch. The ones I'd seen on the march into the citadel were staring and near silent, the Martians not having the same sort of appreciation for a Redcoat parade of arms and brass band as we do. Middleton kept telling me it was just their way, but I find a quiet throng worse than a jeering mob. Happily, there were a string of human settlers spread raggedly along the route, and they cheered loud enough for ten crowds and kept the men from getting nervous and wary of our hosts. It would be weeks before I realized that Middleton was right, when I got a taste of a properly angry lot of Martians.
As I say, HM was the first Martian I'd met up close, when seated a chair or two away from him. As they passed round the soup, I took occasion to study the King and his one or two majordomos and courtiers who danced attendance around his chair.
If you've only seen Martians in portraits and photographs, you haven't really seen them, if you know what I mean. Photos don't capture the colour of their skin, and they make 'em look like small, thin things somehow. Paintings are better done, but I've not yet seen one that didn't change the face of the subject to make it more human. A human can't paint the spirit of your Marsman. He'll take that curious blank face and make it noble, or haughty, or cunning, and a Mars face is none of these things.
Or rather, it can show these things, but it shows 'em in ways that make no sense to men. There are tell-tale signs the locals can read amongst themselves. A tilt to the head, a cast to the limbs, a quiver in the head plumage and suchlike that have sense to Martians. The Marsfolk do portraits of their own, of course, but they're queer things, all angles and geometry, like the sort of thing they're doing in France nowadays. They find human faces to be a complete riddle, on account of the constant movement and shifting. “Churning and gurning,” as a Native officer once told me. To a Martian, a human is constantly pulling grotesque faces, like an ape or an lunatic.
This is deucedly drawn out way of telling you that his HM King Parhoon of Syrtis Major (108th of the name) was a damned cipher to me. I could no more tell his mood than I could read the face of a crocodile.”
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- from the memoirs of Brigadier Franklin Begg, HM Own Martian Rifles (Ret.)
Indeed, the cold, the dress uniforms, the transplanted pines dotting the compound, the hot drinks and plentiful food rather put us in mind of Christmas. Our colour sergeant, Carstairs, with his great white beard and red coat, had more than one infantry wag pointing him out as Father Christmas, a comparison he bore with great equanimity. Even the Martians seemed in the spirit. They wore colourful filmy stuff, sort of gowns and togas and light capes that exposed their spidery limbs, which they festooned with bangles of iron and brass. When they spoke to us, it was in deep and booming voices, but chatted with one another in chirrups and tenor toots and, once or twice, positive squeaking. (Middleton told me Martians were never sure humans could hear 'em in the thin air, so they sounded off like great bass fiddles when talking to us.) Sounded a bit like a menagerie to my ears, or an aviary, but a happy one. The gloom of the trip and the uneasiness of the landing seemed to vanish, at least for the length of the supper.
HM King Parhoon was the first Martian I'd encountered close enough to touch. The ones I'd seen on the march into the citadel were staring and near silent, the Martians not having the same sort of appreciation for a Redcoat parade of arms and brass band as we do. Middleton kept telling me it was just their way, but I find a quiet throng worse than a jeering mob. Happily, there were a string of human settlers spread raggedly along the route, and they cheered loud enough for ten crowds and kept the men from getting nervous and wary of our hosts. It would be weeks before I realized that Middleton was right, when I got a taste of a properly angry lot of Martians.
As I say, HM was the first Martian I'd met up close, when seated a chair or two away from him. As they passed round the soup, I took occasion to study the King and his one or two majordomos and courtiers who danced attendance around his chair.
If you've only seen Martians in portraits and photographs, you haven't really seen them, if you know what I mean. Photos don't capture the colour of their skin, and they make 'em look like small, thin things somehow. Paintings are better done, but I've not yet seen one that didn't change the face of the subject to make it more human. A human can't paint the spirit of your Marsman. He'll take that curious blank face and make it noble, or haughty, or cunning, and a Mars face is none of these things.
Or rather, it can show these things, but it shows 'em in ways that make no sense to men. There are tell-tale signs the locals can read amongst themselves. A tilt to the head, a cast to the limbs, a quiver in the head plumage and suchlike that have sense to Martians. The Marsfolk do portraits of their own, of course, but they're queer things, all angles and geometry, like the sort of thing they're doing in France nowadays. They find human faces to be a complete riddle, on account of the constant movement and shifting. “Churning and gurning,” as a Native officer once told me. To a Martian, a human is constantly pulling grotesque faces, like an ape or an lunatic.
This is deucedly drawn out way of telling you that his HM King Parhoon of Syrtis Major (108th of the name) was a damned cipher to me. I could no more tell his mood than I could read the face of a crocodile.”
-
- from the memoirs of Brigadier Franklin Begg, HM Own Martian Rifles (Ret.)
