Mark Clifton Alex Apostolides 19 min read

On a dying Mars, the mutated folk labor selflessly at the canals so water may reach the lichen of everyone, none taking more than his share, until earthmen arrive who call themselves civilized.

Mark Clifton and Alex Apostolides's 1953 story is a sharp, ironic first-contact and social-SF tale. Pointed, moving golden-age SF. Read it for a mordant story that contrasts the humble, cooperative Martians with their self-satisfied human 'discoverers,' in a well-turned golden-age piece that quietly questions which race truly deserves the name of civilized.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

19 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).