by Alma Nilsson
All the women nodded and then Dru asked, “Why do you marry so young if your lifespans are so long?”
“It’s not only our ancient tradition, but we don’t interfere with fate either,” Madame Bai answered as if that made all the sense in the world.
“What do you mean, by not interfering with fate?”
“We don’t use medical technology for the procreation of children. Therefore, we must marry young.”
Dru was intrigued, “How old is the oldest recorded mother in the Alliance?”
Madame Bai looked up trying to remember, “I think about 55 or 60 years old. It’s not old.” She looked them all over then, “That’s why you all have come here to help us, now moving on.”
“What is courting like?” Rachel asked. “It sounds complicated given that the planet is just full of women, boys, and old men. Are we all just waiting for men in their primes to return at random times and then we jump on them like dogs in heat, or have I missed something?”
Dru looked over at her and thought, Of course you would ask. Rachel was striking. She had, cream colored skin, green eyes, blonde hair, and was tall and strong. Every time Dru had seen her off-duty she had been surrounded by men smiling.
“I wasn’t going to talk about this today, but maybe it’s right we should just jump in and start here given that you are all of marriageable age. Except for you Drusilla, you must wait a year and I assume you will attempt to become a doctor here as well which will also set you back. As for the rest of you, I’ve no doubt that Alliance men will find you all very attractive,” Madame Bai said. “Please turn to chapter five, ‘Courting and Marriage’. Courting is when a man and a woman begin to see each other privately. Under no circumstances does this imply sex. Or even too much physical contact. It’s for the sole purpose to get to know one another intellectually and emotionally. During this time, you might go on dates, for example, walks in the park, the morning or midday meal at a restaurant, yes, I see your faces, we do have restaurants here even if you do not like our food,” Madame Bai frowned. “If you like the man you continue to meet him privately and then after some time you decide if you would like to be married. If you decide to marry, you’ll have a small ceremony with some of your closest friends, exchange bracelets and then you’ll be married.”
“What about unmarried?” Jane asked pushing a hand through her brown hair.
“You mean not married yet?” Madame Bai tried to confirm the question. “Yes, you are all referred to as ‘unmarried women’ right now.”
“No, I mean when the marriage dissolves,” Jane clarified.
“If you run away from your partner you will be brought back and put to a very painful death either by your husband’s hand or the court’s. That’s the only way a marriage is dissolved, by death. In some rare circumstances, if you have married a man who is uninterested in you sexually, you can dissolve the marriage that way. But this is even rarer these days with a shortage of women, many men who don’t enjoy women don’t have to pretend to be interested in them as they did in the past.”
“Must we marry then? And if so, how long do we have to find someone?” asked Rebecca.
“Women should all be married by 40 years old. Some of you have only a few years to meet someone and of course we are not barbarians, we understand that some of you older women may not be able to meet a man to marry. If that’s the case, you’ll be adequately compensated. The rest of you that are below 30 years old must marry and you will be punished just as any other Alliance woman would be for not marrying. Traditionally, all men should be married by fifty. Unfortunately, with the demographic issues we have now, many men are unmarried and will never have an opportunity to marry and so many of them have chosen to remain in the military permanently,” Madame Bai said regretfully. “But I guess if you cannot marry there is no greater honor than to die for the glory and expansion of the Empire. Thanks be to the gods’ who light our paths in these dark days.”
“Is this why the Alliance has been waging wars on the entire galaxy for the last 100 years or was that just for expansion, power and profits?” Jane asked coolly.
Madame Bai gave her a nasty look and answered her just as icily, “Jane, let me remind you that you are no longer considered a human in this galaxy. Your allegiance stands with the Alliance now, so you ought to have some sympathy for all those men who died for the Empire, never having a chance at a family of their own. If you ask another sassy question, you’ll be punished. And let me remind you all, that means you’ll all be punished. Understood?”
“Understood,” said Jane fiercely.
“What if your husband dies?” Dru asked to change the subject. She didn’t like the angry emotions flying through the room and she didn’t want another punishment today.
“You can remarry, but you don’t have to. However, if there is any hint of foul play it will be investigated, and you will be put to death if found guilty. Marriage is the most sacred contract two people can make together. My advice to you is to not marry anyone lightly.” She sighed and then began again, “Now, to continue, when a man is courting you, he’ll give you jewelry to mark how he perceives the attachment. No matter what happens in the relationship, you’re able to keep this jewelry, but usually women don’t accept or wear any jewelry from a man they aren’t very serious about.”
“I don’t want a man I don’t know well giving me anything,” interjected another woman. “We’re human women we’re equal to men.”
“This is the Alliance, not Earth, and men and women have strictly prescribed roles. This kind of gift-giving has nothing to do with being equal or not.” She sighed, “Now, where was I?”
“We were talking about courting, but what about marriage? Do we become the property of our husbands’?” Jane finally asked. Everyone had been thinking it since they received their new translators and the words ‘slave’ and ‘marriage’ had remained unchanged.
“Absolutely not. What a preposterous idea!” Madame Bai looked at them all and felt sorry for them that they had come from such a barbaric place to even think they would not be equal to men. “Rest assured ladies that your husband will have no control over you in mind, body or spirit. This is the Alliance Empire.”
“But Admiral Tir just took our Captain and married her, how is that if men and women are equal?” Dru asked. She felt there was something not right, but she couldn’t read Madame Bai’s thoughts, so she had to ask.
Madame Bai frowned, “It’s difficult to explain all the circumstances that led to your captain’s hasty marriage being legal as you are so new here. However, it seems as though your captain agreed to the marriage freely and subsequently has agreed with witnesses. Although, there was no courting, Admiral Tir didn’t break any laws in marrying Captain Kara so quickly. I’d advise you all to not go down that route though, long courtships end in the happiest of marriages in my experience.”
Madame Bai continued talking about courting and marriage for another hour. All Dru really took away from it was that there were lots of rules that must be followed including what they could and could not discuss with men. Thankfully, all of these rules were clearly outlined in their chapter about courting and marriage. What she found most shocking was that women under no circumstance could ever discuss anything to do with female reproduction, including periods, with men. She thought that was so odd. She wanted to ask about it, but was so overwhelmed with everything else she decided she would just save that question for another time. She did not imagine herself ever going through the process of courting with an Alliance man any time soon, so she wanted to focus her attention on things that mattered now, like understanding what was expected of them for the rest of the day and tomorrow without a punishment.
Later in the afternoon, they were told about the Alliance’s religion which was made up of a pantheon of gods. In their tablets they had a picture and synopsis of each god or goddess and their role in life. “The Alliance has two major religious festivals every year which all citizens must attend. T
he next one will be in two months, by which time you will be well-acquainted enough with the temple and its routine to not make fools of yourselves. I’m well aware that you think you all are above us because humans gave up religion centuries ago, but let me share with you one myth that will be of interest to all of you,
Long ago, when the Alliance was still an infant and ships got lost, a fleet of explorers and scientists were pulled to the other side of the galaxy by an unknown force. Unable to come back, they found an almost inhospitable planet, too bright, too hot, but uninhabited except for some small animals. They sent a message back to the Empire explaining their situation, begging to be rescued. The message took over one-hundred years to arrive. When it was received, the Alliance had already counted those in that fleet for dead. The Empress and Emperor then were very greedy and did not want to waste time and resources to go look for some citizens who may or may not be still alive and waiting to be rescued. The Imperial Family decided to conceal the information about the Lost People. They had the message destroyed. From that point forward, everything only got better for the Empire, technology, military, colonies and Alliance civilization in the known galaxy soared and no one thought about the rumored Lost People again, until we discovered a species almost like our own. They called themselves ‘humans. We sent ships to investigate them before they had the technology to understand what we were doing. We believed that these humans were most likely the Lost People. However, since the Empress and Emperor of past had all the original documents destroyed, no one remembered the exact location of the Lost People. So, it was decided, conveniently, that humans were not the Lost People and the Alliance continued to expand and to almost completely ignore humanity. But now, the gods are punishing the Alliance for not retrieving the Lost People when we were twice given the opportunity to do so. They are making us suffer with low-female birth rates and catastrophic disruptions to our perfectly ordered society. We have been given a third chance now, to accept humans back into the fold or die from our pride.
Do you see now?” Their religious teacher all looked at them and smiled, “You are the Lost People. That is why in a galaxy filled with thousands of different species we are the only two genetically identical. It is not luck. You are us. That is why it is only natural that you return to us now.”
Dru and the rest of the women did not know what to say. None of them had ever met someone so zealously religious who was trying to convert them before. They sat bewildered. For the rest of their religious class, they had to learn all the basic prayers and practice saying them and lighting candles in the small shrine. This reminded Dru so much of home and growing up with her mother it almost seemed natural to her, but she shrugged off the feeling. This is an alien world and an alien religion, this has nothing to do with Earth or me, she reminded herself. And when she opened her mind to the other women around her, she knew they were just repeating the words but thought it was all just empty beliefs of an empty people with no beauty to live for, so they had religion.
“I don’t understand why you, coming from such a technologically advanced civilization, still believe in mythical gods?” asked Jane, echoing what all the women had thought in private. “Why can’t you just say, ‘You are a group of Alliance people who became stranded long ago and now we need you back because we have messed up our demographics somehow?’ Or why can’t you just use science to fix your problem?”
Their religion teacher thought for a moment and then answered, “Think of religion as a road map for life. A set of vows and rituals with a spiritual belief that may or may not be strong for you. To live in a galaxy without these road maps would be to live a half-life, a life reinventing the wheel. The gods provide for us clear guidelines how to be good and efficient in our lives, without them, we might as well just program computers to continue the Empire and do nothing ever again. We might as well not exist at all.”
“Is it then the struggle of life which motivates the Alliance?” Dru asked. “The knowing you’ll never be as perfect as the gods and that you will always disappoint them and suffer the consequences. The pain to remind yourselves you are really living?”
“Or just plain social control, James” said Jane.
The teacher ignored Jane’s comment and answered Dru, “I guess, in a way, you may say it’s the suffering. We do place a great deal of emphasis on rewards and punishments. I find it very difficult to believe humans no longer have a place for spirituality in their lives,” the teacher placed one finger over her heart to indicate her deep sincerity in what she said, while looking directly at Dru.
“Why do you pray?” asked Rebecca.
“I pray because it’s impossible to know everyone at once, but I wish them all good lives. Only the gods can know everyone, their hopes and temptations. I pray for the gods to provide for all.” The teacher looked around the room, feeling pleased that she had at least explained one thing that seemed to resonate with these women. “Please begin memorizing the first three prayers from your prayer book. I’ll expect you to know them without hesitation by tomorrow. Dismissed.”
After the evening meal, the women were allowed to do what they wanted and most retired to their rooms to sleep. The next day would be another day of classes. However, Dru was asked to remain in the classroom with Madame Bai and a woman that Dru now recognized as a doctor by her blue uniform and medical jewelry, a silver circle with three horizontal lines going through it.
“Drusilla, this is Doctor Jina. She’s here to help you prepare to enter the medical school.”
Dru looked at the middle-aged woman, she wore her hair in thick braids that were wound up on either side of her head and she had large sympathetic green eyes. “It’s nice to meet you,” Dru said but did not extend her hand. Alliance people did not touch each other unless you were family or very good friends.
Jina smiled at Dru, “I look forward to introducing you to Alliance medicine. If you’re ready to begin, we can dismiss Madame Bai.” Dru nodded and then Madame Bai smiled and left. “Now, I’ve seen your medical reports from Space Port One. The first thing we must do is teach you to use your telepathic ability to its full capacity. Whatever they taught you on Earth, clearly, is not working at all.”
“My mother was a telepath and she taught me how to use it, but when I wanted to figure out how to use it more, I basically was only using the trial and error method. I had never even met another telepath until I came here.
“That makes sense why you have trouble replying telepathically then. It’s like learning to speak, it’s natural but you must practice. You must learn to do this as you’ll want to have private conversations with people using telepathy. You must also be able to shield your thoughts from others too, to become a truly proficient telepath.” Jina saw the look of concern on Drusilla’s face and added, “Don’t worry, only a small percentage of the population is telepathic, it’s a recessive gene and most of us are doctors, so you will always have a good guess who heard you if you found you projected a thought or two.”
Dru looked at Jina and said honestly, “I can’t tell when I am projecting.”
Jina smiled at her, “Okay, let me show you. Do you mind if I touch your hands?”
Dru kindly held out her hands to Jina, “Please.”
Jina took Dru’s warm hands in her own and showed her what projection felt like by sharing her own perception of it, “It feels like a thought greater than your own.”
“I can barely feel that,” Dru admitted.
“But you can feel it and that is the beginning. Your sensitivity to telepathy will grow the more you use it. Now, let’s practice. I want you to ask me questions telepathically and then I’ll answer them. I want you to say the answers out loud so that I know you heard me and that I understood your question.”
Dru looked into Doctor Jina’s warm green eyes and agreed, First question, Are you married?
Jina smiled, Yes.
Dru said out loud, “You are married.” And then telepathically, How long have you been married?
Ten years.
Dru commented, “You’ve been married for ten years, a long time.”
Jina smiled, “Not long. We’re practically newlyweds, you’ll see. Keep going, you are doing well.”
Dru asked another question, How many children do you have?
Doctor Jina smiled again, One son, and she projected an image of her son to Dru.
After about an hour of practice Dru was getting better. “It’s invigorating to speak telepathically,” she admitted after Jina said that it was enough practice for today.
“It is,” Jina agreed. “How were you and your mother using this skill at home? Your ability to project and manipulate is very strong. Whatever you tell me remains between us,” then she put one finger over her heart to indicate her sincerity.
Dru looked into Doctor Jina’s eyes and decided she might as well say some of the truth as it might help her get better at using telepathy. “My mother is a traditional healer. We used it to calm patients and make them see what they wanted to see and feel what they wanted to feel.”
Jina nodded, “I see, that is a bit like influence, but manipulation of another’s mind goes against the gods and carries punishments with it if not used in the appropriate situations.”
“I won’t do it here.”
“I didn’t say that,” said Jina. Then Dru heard her say through telepathy, In the Alliance we can say one thing while doing another. Don’t ever let your guard down, but don’t get caught either. Then out loud she said, “And now there is one more thing I must discuss with you. Drusilla, we need to talk about the rape.”