The Martians

Chapter 18 Big Man in Love

When Big Man fell in love with a human woman, it was big trouble.

Her name was Zoya. Yes, she had the same first name as Zo Boone—she was a clone of Zo’s, in fact, cloned by Zo’s friends after Zo’s fatal accident. So genetically Zoya was another daughter of Jackie’s, therefore granddaughter of Kasei, and great-granddaughter of John Boone himself. That wasn’t all; because Zo’s body had floated for a while in the north sea, she had been slightly salted, and thereby became inadvertently related to the resurgent archaea. And in that salty fizzing primeval soup of a sea it seems she also picked up traits of kelp and limpet, dolphin and sea otter, and who knows what else. So she was a lot of things—big like Paul Bunyan, wild like Zo, rebellious like the archaea, happy like John, and as stormy and tempestuous as the northern sea. That was Zoya; Zoya was everything. She swam through icebergs, and flew in the jet stream, and ran the round-the-worlder for an afternoon jog. She drank and she smoked and she took strange drugs, she had casual sex with strangers and even with friends, and she skipped work anytime the waves were big. In short, she was a thrill seeker; she was a disgrace to propriety and morality; she mocked all principles of human progress. She could kill with a glance or a palm punch to the nose. Her motto was “Fun at all costs.”

Thus when Big Man dropped by Mars one day, and saw Zoya out surfing the hundred-meter waves of the Polar Peninsula, it was love at first sight. This was his kind of woman!

And Zoya proved agreeable. She liked big men, and Big Man was a big man. So they played around Mars together, Big Man stepping carefully in his old footsteps to avoid wreaking any new havoc, and trying hard not to get tangled in things. But he couldn’t help it. They gamboled along the Ius Ridge Trail, and his tiptoeing is what brought down all those cliffs ten years ago. He went swimming with Zoya and that’s what flooded Boone’s Neck peninsula, even though he only went in knee deep. He flew in the jet stream with her and his shadow caused the first year without a summer. They didn’t notice any of that; they were having too much fun together.

They even tried to have sex together. Zoya would climb into Big Man’s ears and fool around, and afterward he would hold her in the palm of his hand and moan like King Kong with Fay Wray, you know, Come on, baby, please let’s make love, make love with me, and she would just laugh and point down at his erection and say, Sorry, Big Man. I’d like to but you won’t fit. Why it’d take me all day just to climb that willful tower, it’d be as hard as climbing Dishes in the Sink or the Other Old Man of Hoy. And to show him she even tried a little of that too, free-climbing to the overhang and massaging what she could reach. But to Big Man it felt like he was being pinched by an ant.

Too bad, she would say, going for a swim. Best I can do.

But I gotta, moaned Big Man, I wanna, I hafta, I needta, the usual line, familiar to guys and gals everywhere. But this time there was nothing to be done. Sorry, Zoya would say. No can do. If only you were smaller.

Then one time, looking a bit flushed and frustrated herself, she said, Look, it’s a matter of will. If only you were smaller we’d be fine! I’d ride you all night. Maybe you should look into getting yourself a smaller cock.

What? Big Man cried. What do you mean?

I mean a smaller cock. You know, get a transplant. Have that one cut off and a smaller one sewn on in its place.

A smaller one? Cut off?

That’s what the situation calls for, big guy. That’s what will have to happen for us to work out.

What? What?

Transplant! Transplant! You can get one wherever you get organ transplants. Hospitals, right?

No way, said Big Man. For one thing—and there’s a lot more than one here—transplanted organs come from cadavers.

You could get your own cultured and grown to a smaller size. They do stuff like that now.

Oh please, Big Man said. It makes me queasy just talking about this stuff.

Not my fault, Zoya said. Where there’s a will there’s a way. And she went out flying by herself.

Well, you know. Life was no fun anymore. Eventually Big Man got desperate. He got so desperate that he very surreptitiously began looking into the matter, going to a clinic and telling the people there a clever story about a friend of his who had a very small fiancée. And he found out that the latest in what people called starfish biotechnology was indeed up to the task as described. He could have his private parts surgically removed and replaced by a cultured replacement grown from cells of the original. Cells from its most sensitive part, one doctor assured him. A two-magnitude reduction done twice would make him about right for Zoya.

Peace of mind left Big Man. He was cast on the horns of a dilemma, one big one small. This is horrible! he said. This is ridiculous! I will not do this. I will forget her. He left the cosmetic urology clinic and did not return.

But the fact of the matter is that Big Man was in love, and Big Man’s love was a big love. And love is a big thing; a very willful thing. And a life without love is a sad thing. And a life without Zoya was dull beyond belief.

So finally one day Big Man said, All right all right all right, and dragged back to the clinic to let them take some cells from the most sensitive spot. It hurt a lot.

After that he went out to the Oort cloud to commune with himself. We’ll draw a curtain on that scene and let him have some private time, and only say that when he came back, looking tired and apprehensive, he declared himself ready. And Zoya held his hand while they administered several liters of general anesthetic to him, and performed the operation, and when he came to he had private parts twice two magnitudes smaller than before.

Ridiculous, he said.

As a tribute to his courage Zoya had his old organ chemically petrified and airlifted out to the Hellespontus, where it was placed next to the rock tower called Dishes in the Sink. It has since become a popular climbing tower, as you know, sporting scores of routes up it.

And after all the stitches had dissolved and Big Man was physically healed, Zoya took him up to the shores of Chryse Gulf, in midsummer, to a favorite beach of hers, an empty strand on a lost bay.

Will you love me now? Big Man asked her.

I will, Zoya said.

Here again we will draw a curtain and give them some privacy. Suffice it to say that when they came back south, Big Man was light on his feet for the first time; he was walking ten meters off the ground. He hadn’t known it could be so good.

Later on Zoya left him and broke his heart, unfortunately, and he had to get used to that, as well as to his organ being just a sweet little thing between his legs. It was kind of strange, but not really bad. It meant that when he met other human women he liked, he was sometimes able to form quite satisfactory relationships with them. And occasionally he would run into Zoya, and sometimes they would renew their old affair, with considerable passion. So that all in all, in the long run, looking at everything that had happened since and putting it all in the balance, he judged that it had been worth it. And the climbers on Mars continue to appreciate the decision as well.