Mining the Oort by Frederik Pohl

relatives were?
    But it seemed that it did matter, although except for the fact that the Masai were of pleasingly stretched-out proportions compared to the Kikuyu, Dekker could not distinguish between one tribe and another. The Kenyans all could, though. Infallibly, A fair proportion of the "citizenship" classes, as the shove-and-grunt sessions were properly called, were devoted to the subject, Mr. Cummings invariably beginning by reminding all the students that it didn't matter what tribe their ancestors had come from, they were all not only equal but, really, the same .
    He got challenged on it, too. Afira Kantado raised her hand and pointed to Dekker. "He's not the same," she said.
    "Of course he is, Kantado," Mr. Cummings said patiently, "or at least you should act as though he were." She looked unconvinced, so the teacher explained. "You know what the basis of good citizenship is. You don't have to like any other person. If you have bad feelings, that's all right. It's perfectly natural for you to dislike another person. The important thing is that you must always keep your resentments to yourself —except in these sessions, of course. If you let the hostilities and angers out in the outside world, that's when conflicts start—and violence—and, in the long run, it could even lead to wars. We don't want that, do we? So we must—DeWoe? Did you want to say something?"
    Dekker had his hand up. "That isn't the way we do it on Mars," he pointed out.
    There was a faint sound from the class, almost a titter. Mr. Cummings gave them a warning look. "No, of course it isn't, DeWoe," he agreed. Different places have different customs. I understand on Mars the thrust is to make you like each other, isn't it?"
    Dekker frowned. "Not 'like,' exactly. There are plenty of people I don't particularly like. But we have to trust each other, and care for each other—we have to make sure everybody's being treated fairly. Like—" He had been going to say, "like the Law of the Raft," but changed his mind in the middle of the sentence."—like we're all family ."
    Mr. Cummings nodded tolerantly. "I suppose that's quite important on Mars, where the conditions are so much more—severe. And of course it would be even more so under even harsher conditions, would it not? For example, DeWoe, you're planning to go out into the Oort cloud to work. Why don't you tell the class what it's like out there?"
    "I've never been there," he objected.
    "But your father has. He must have told you stories about it."
    The fact was, he hadn't. But Dekker was not prepared to admit that in public, so he did his best. "Out in the Oort," he said, "it's like Mars, only tougher. You can't throw your weight around. You can't afford to be jealous of somebody else, or try to get an advantage over him. You have to try to understand how the other person feels."
    "It sounds good to me," Walter Ngemba put in, not bothering to raise his hand.
    "It sounds stupid ," Afira Kantado commented. "What about sex?"
    "Sex?" Dekker repeated, trying to imagine what sex had to do with docility—or "citizenship."
    "You keep saying 'him.' What about men and women? Don't they ever have two men loving the same woman?"
    "Oh," said Dekker, relieved, "that. That's no problem. A man takes a duty wife—or a woman takes a duty husband—and they live together as long as they both want to. Then they stop."
    One of the Masai had a hand up, snickering. "When your old man was in the Oort, did he have a duty wife?"
    Dekker answered hotly, "My father has a wife. She's my mother. What would he want another wife for?"
    Half a dozen hands went up then, over grinning faces. Mr. Cummings shook his head. "This is a very interesting discussion," he pronounced, "but the period's over. We'll resume it at our next session if you like—but now, good afternoon to you all."
     
    As they clumped together at the door, Walter Ngemba touched Dekker's arm and said consolingly, "I'm sorry about that chap Merad. It's just