This is Chapter 25 of The Universal Good Deal, you may want to start at the beginning or go back to Chapter 24.
25
It is unclear whether Ross knew that Welles only made him her advisor to unsettle Barrow. Such an occasion came when Barrow announced that he had a message from the Aliens and wished to speak with Welles in person. Welles ordered Ross to attend the meeting with her.
‘Good day, Mrs President,’ said Barrow when he arrived. ‘First Secretary Ross, I’m glad to see that you are no longer in the hospital.’
Of course, Barrow was very pleasant when he was confronted with the first secretary. Welles should have known that he was not the kind of man who was easily perturbed. Barrow patted Ross’s cast, and then turned to the president.
‘Our members, the Aliens, have asked me to speak to you about the monetary situation. They are concerned that we are not maintaining a sufficient supply and would like you to print more.'
‘If we have any problem with our money,’ said Welles, ‘and I'm not saying we do—the problem is that the Aliens never spend any of it here!’
‘Why don't you tell us why they really want our money,’ said Ross.
‘Why shouldn't the Aliens want our money?’ said Barrow. ‘It seems to me that it proves their good will. They could have just come here and taken whatever they wanted. Instead, they are trading with us, and that necessarily puts us on an equal footing. If they want our money, let's trade it to them for the things we want, and may the best product win.1 Besides, I really can't see what everyone is complaining about. We are all much better off than before.2 During these last three months, which I have passed almost constantly in the presence of the Alien trade, I can conscientiously declare that I have never seen anyone led to any excess by it.3 I feel compelled to say that it is by far the safest trade on Earth.’4
'I doubt even you believe that, Mr Barrow. Surely you've seen the lines, people who sell everything they have in order to keep buying whatever new thing the Aliens are selling.'
'I must confess,' said Barrow, 'that it does seem most unjust to throw any blame or odium attaching to the trade upon the Aliens.5 These hard-working immigrants should not be expected to give up their accustomed trade because their lot has been cast among a people with ungoverned appetites.6 If we are reasonable, our people will desist from excessive trade. The solution to this problem rests principally with the us—not Aliens.’7
‘Ungoverned appetites!’ shouted Ross. ‘How dare you! It’s the fucking croakers who can’t control themselves. Maybe if they weren’t a bunch of junkies, they could actually take a shit without stealing all our money!’
Both Welles and Barrow turned to Ross and stared at him.
‘What the hell are you talking about, Ross?’ said Welles.
‘It's not leprosy at all!’ Ross shouted, sensing that he had overstepped. ‘They don't want our money to fix their skin. The Aliens are addicts. They're hooked on some drug from their home world, and doing it stops 'em up—like heroin.’
‘Stops them up?’ said Barrow. ‘What in the world do you mean?’
‘It constipates them. That's the reason they want our money. They've discovered that our paper money is the only way to clear their system and get their digestions back in order. Why else would they come all this way to trade all their space-age shit for our cash? If we cut 'em off, it'll be chaos for them, they're whole civilization will probably collapse.8 Maybe—maybe even they'll all die!’9
Welles stopped Ross with a gesture and turned to Barrow. ‘Tell the Aliens that we will manage our own affairs. I'm not going down this road on nothing more than good faith.’
Now, how it was that Ross came to such an outrageous conclusion may seem unfathomable to the modern reader. But there are several crucial aspects of the interaction between the Martian and Alien cultures that are necessary to understand before judging the man too harshly.
Fetishes had developed among the Aliens for many of the odd traditions practiced by the Martians, even language (so foreign to the Alien mentality). It became quite popular among the Aliens to frequent Martian bookstores and libraries. Some Aliens also found the disgusting Martian method of cleaning the anus attractive—although it may have been that these Aliens were actually fascinated with the concept of flushing.
I should explain that the Martians had long struggled with diseases spread through unclean water. It seems that they had a habit of defecating in the same water they drank. By the time the Aliens arrived, the Martians were aware of the deleterious effects of such habits, and had developed a solution of sorts. Of course, the obvious solution to this problem seems childlike in its simplicity: don't shit in your drinking water. But this is not how the Martians of that time thought.
Their innovation was to develop highly potent poisons to kill the bacteria in their water. It seems that they treated their water with these methods—at great cost—not only so they could safely drink it, but indeed for the very purpose of continuing to shit in it! I fear that I may challenge the reader's credulity, but I assure you that I do not lie when I say that the Martians considered it the height of civilization to use their clean drinking water as a conveyance to remove their excreta and all manner of other wastes from their dwellings. They called this process flushing.
While I fear I may step even further beyond my reader's credulity, I must relate that the practice of flushing was paired with an even more startling tradition. I assure you that I relate the truth here, and that it is no joke.
One of the most popular methods by which the Martians cleaned themselves after defecating was nothing more than a wispy bit of paper held in their bare fingers. They called this practice wiping.
Thankfully, such Martian barbarisms vanished shortly after the Aliens introduced self-sterilizing disposable undergarments. The undergarments are obviously a much better solution to the hygienic disposal of bodily wastes, and were rapidly adopted by the Martians. Even though a portion of the catastrophic collapse of their civilization has been attributed to their reliance on the undergarments, I think it should hardly diminish the great improvement this technology represented over the previous Martian waste management technologies.
It was the case, however, that Ross had unfortunately heard tale of these Alien fetishists fascinated with wiping. A group of Aliens, who also happened to be extremely intoxicated, convinced each other to attempt to clean themselves in the Martian manner. Doubtless, there was a certain sexual exhilaration in the act as well. Lacking genuine Martian wiping paper, these Aliens used the only paper they had at hand—Martian paper money. Several Martians, who were also present, recorded the event.
When Ross was shown these recordings, he immediately abandoned his theories of leprosy in favor of this new idea that the money was a cure for constipation. Like almost all the Martians, he simply could not fathom that the Aliens did not need the Martian money at all.
Chapter 26 tomorrow, same time, same place.
Footnotes
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And when men live by trade–with reason, not force, as their final arbiter–it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability–and the degree of man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 1957 ↩
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I really can't see what everyone is complaining about. We're all much better off than before. Joseph Heller, Catch-22 1961 ↩
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During the 21 years that I have passed almost entirely in China, I can conscientiously declare that I have never seen a native in the least bestialised by opium smoking. James Matheson 1839 ↩
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By far the safest trade in China. William Jardine 1840 ↩
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We must confess that it does seem most unjust to throw any blame or odium attaching to the opium trade upon the merchants, who engaged in a business thus directly and indirectly sanctioned by the highest authorities. Committee of the London East India and China Association to Lord Palmerston, November 1839 ↩
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A teetotal colony, rigidly excluding spirits altogether, may or may not be the only means of saving aborigines from the effects of their infatuation for drink ; but the idea is, and will be, Utopian, until the habits of the English race change. The social habits, dress, food, and favourite beverages of emigrants will be the same in the new country as in the old ; and, though the liquors used by the settler prove to be a source of evil to the native, it is only here and there, perhaps, that an individual could be found who would abandon their use — one who would order his whole life with reference to the influence of his acts upon the aborigines. The hard-working emigrants generally could not be expected to give up the grateful cordials which they and their forefathers had been accustomed to, because their lot had been cast among a savage people with ungoverned appetites. Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, Scenes and Studies of Savage Life 1868 ↩
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If your people are virtuous, they will desist from the evil practice; and if your officers are incorruptible, and obey their orders, no opium can enter your country. The discouragement of the growth of the poppy in our territories rests principally with you. Henry Pottinger, in Granville G Loch, The Closing Events of the Campaign in China 1843 ↩
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The foreigners from the West are naturally fond of milk and cream; indulgence in these luxuries induces costiveness, when there is nothing but rhubarb and tea will clear their system and restore their spirits; if once we cut off the trade of the barbarians, turbulence and disorder will ensue in their own countries; and this is the first reason why they must have our goods. North China Herald, 15 March 1851 ↩
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Yet more,--our tea and our rhubarb--seeing that, should you foreigners be deprived of them, you therein lose the means of preserving life,--are without stint or grudge granted to you for exportation, year by year, beyond the seas. Favours never have been greater! Lin Zexu, Imperial Commissioner to the Hong Kong Merchants 18 March 1839 ↩